


Blue Christmas

by ishtarelisheba



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Christmas Movie AU, Christmas fic, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-09-15 22:18:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 34,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16941735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishtarelisheba/pseuds/ishtarelisheba
Summary: Faced with the impossible choice of losing his children, Thomas Gold goes on the lam with nothing save a few things salvaged from his ex-wife’s evicted apartment. His aimless fleeing finds him stranded in the little town of Storybrooke, swept up by a mistaken identity and a young woman with a shocking streak of kindness. But he knows his luck. It can’t last long, can it?





	1. Chapter 1

“It’s all right, we’re going to see Mum,” he soothed as they made their way through the hospital foyer, one child on his hip, the other’s mittened hand held in his own. 

Neal hopped over lines in the tile until they arrived at the elevator, where he was more than happy to press the button. Repeatedly. “How long do we have to stay?”

“Until everyone has had enough visiting. Press four.” With a sigh, he watched his son press the button for the fourth floor along with a half dozen others. At least there was no one else on the elevator ahead of them.

“What if I don’t want to go visit?” Neal asked, muffled by chewing at the thumb of his mitten. “It smells funny.”

He gave his son a sympathetic smile. It wasn’t as though he wanted to be there, himself. “Probably not too long.”

They reached the prison ward front desk and he tried to set Alice down. She held her feet up, giving him a look of distress. He’d hardly had a minute without either of the children clinging in days. Both had been thoroughly unnerved.

“Come on, love. For a minute,” he coaxed. 

The guard at the desk looked at him impatiently. “Name and prisoner name?”

“Thomas Gold, here to see Milah Cassidy,” he answered. Alice at last put her feet down, holding onto his trouser leg. 

After pecking at the keyboard for a moment, the guard pushed a clipboard across to him and tapped the next blank with a pen. He signed them in on the log and picked Alice up again to relieve her insistent tugging at his clothes. With a quick look at their names, the guard buzzed the door. 

Thomas plucked the little knit hats from the children’s heads before they went into the visitation area, sticking them in his pockets and smoothing their hair. His ex-wife came in from another door while they were being waved over with a metal detector. She looked precisely as sallow and ill-tempered as he expected. He steered Neal to a seat at an empty table and took the chair next to him.

Milah patted the table as she sat, asking Neal, “Did you get what I told you to?”

With a guilty glance to his father, he pulled a partially crushed pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket. She snatched them from his small hand with a similar look around.

“Where did you get those?” Thomas asked, gaping at him, and Neal shrunk into himself a little. Now he understood what the mumbles of ‘yes, Mom, yes, Mom,’ were about on the phone the night before. He turned a glare on Milah. “Great lesson, there. How proud you must be.”

“Oh, get off your high horse. I knew _you_ weren’t going to buy them. And nobody here will get cigarettes for me.” She shrugged, sticking the pack under her top. “I have to get them somehow, don’t I?”

“Because that’s the most important thing.” He petted over his son’s hair to show the boy that he wasn’t angry. If anyone knew how Milah was, it was him.

She was twitchy, picking at her cuticles, bouncing a knee beneath the table. “These shitty doctors won’t even give me anything for a headache.”

“Well, they did save your life,” he pointed out. “Maybe be grateful.”

Neal fished in his father’s coat pocket for the phone he knew was there, changing the focus of his attention out of what was probably self-preservation. Alice tucked her face against the collar of Thomas’ coat, and he patted her back in a heartbeat rhythm. The children were nervous, bordering on scared. He couldn’t fault them for it. The visitation room was loud and smelled worse than the usual hospital sterility. It wore on his own nerves. 

“Tam…” Milah’s voice turned syrupy sweet. She smiled and folded her arms on the table. “Do you think you could get something for me?”

“No.”

“Next time you visit?”

“No, Milah,” he hissed, flicking a look toward their son to make certain Neal’s concentration was elsewhere. “I’m not smuggling anything in for you.”

She scowled, but the expression faded quickly. Sitting back, she shrugged again. “That’s okay. You’re right,” she said in a tone he didn’t trust an inch. “I’m going to get myself together. When I get out, I’ll get the apartment cleaned up, take the kids back.”

Thomas shook his head out of equal parts doubt and reluctance. There was no reason to believe her. He couldn’t count the promises she’d made and broken.

“The kids and I are doing just fine,” he pointed out. “They do great when someone is actually taking care of them.”

With a scoff, she leaned in as though she had some secret for him. “You don’t have to take care of them if you don’t want to. You could let the-”

“I have _never_ said I didn’t want to,” he cut in quickly, before she could say in front of the children what he suspected she was going to. He looked to find Neal peering back and forth at them over the top of his phone. “It’s time for us to go. We have things to do today.”

He pushed back from the table and eased the phone away from Neal, urging his son ahead of him. It had been the wrong choice, giving in to her demands that he bring the children to see her there. All she’d wanted was to test her power over them.

Before they could reach the door, Milah stood, taking a couple of long strides to grab hold of the shoulder of Neal’s coat. “When you see Killian, tell him I’m here.”

Thomas gave her a look of disgusted disbelief. He took Neal’s hand, pulling him away and behind him. “Killian is in jail. They won’t be seeing him,” he snipped, feeling the camel’s back straining with straw after straw from her. “You nearly died, Milah. The _kids_ found you.”

She pulled a face. “That’s not my fault.”

“No, nothing ever is.” He shifted Alice higher against his chest as she slipped down. “What did you think was going to happen? You’d get out in a few days and things would be hunky dory? You’re going to prison. And you’re not getting the children back.”

The only reason he had been alerted to something being very wrong was because of Alice’s daycare. Neither Milah nor her boyfriend showed up to fetch the girl, and he was next on the pick-up authorization list. Her teacher had called, frantic, when she was the only one left in the building.

He had made the terrible mistake of letting the children run into the apartment ahead of him. Following Neal’s scream, he found Milah lying on the bedroom floor, half dressed, needle still in her arm. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to call 911 for her. Following a search of the apartment, the police found an assortment of drugs and paraphernalia in amounts that meant she and her boyfriend would be going away for trafficking. They weren’t getting out anytime soon, no matter how sure of herself she was.

She smirked at him. “We’ll. See.”

“You’ve been evicted. Has your lawyer told you that?” Thomas asked. “You haven’t paid rent in months. Everything was put out on the sidewalk.”

“I’ll find somewhere else,” she said, as though it was hardly a concern.

He turned, weary of beating his head against the brick wall of his ex-wife. The children needed lunch and a nap, and he needed to brainstorm about how on earth he was going to make this work.

“Mr. Gold, isn’t it?” someone asked as soon as he’d gotten them out of the visitation room. “Mr. Thomas Gold?”

A woman with a pinched face and dark hair pulled back into a severe bun rose from the nearest chair, her arms full of manila folders. He knew that look. Social worker. 

“That would be me,” he acknowledged. She knew or she wouldn’t have zeroed in on him.

Stalking over with an uncomfortably appraising sweep of him, she introduced herself. “Ms. Saffira Gorm. I’m with Massachusetts DCF.”

He did his best to hold onto what dignity he could under her judgment. “I know who you’re with.”

“She’s gonna take us away!” Neal gasped, his voice on the edge of panic. He pulled urgently at his father’s hand.

“That’s not going to happen,” Thomas told him, walking the children over to the waiting room seats. He nudged Neal into one and placed Alice in beside him. “Don’t move your bottoms from that chair. Pretend you’ve been glued. All right?”

He touched the top of his son’s head before turning to invite the social worker around the corner with a polite gesture, just behind enough that he could see Neal and Alice, while they couldn’t see Ms. Gorm or her theatrics. “What is this about?” he asked quietly.

“Oh, Mr. Gold. You know what this is about.” She smiled what was perhaps the most disingenuous smile he’d ever seen. Flipping open the topmost file in her stack, she went on. “Neglect, abandonment, eviction. Drug use. Now trafficking. These children have a history with DCF.”

“Those incidents occurred in Milah’s custody, which they’re clearly no longer in. I’m taking care of them now,” Thomas clarified for her.

“Mm, but I’m afraid that isn’t a satisfactory situation, either. You’ve nothing in your bank account. You barely have a job. How do you expect to take care of two children? There’s also the fact that you barely passed a home visit the last time trouble came up,” Ms. Gorm said with far too much glee, turning a page so that she could point out parts of a report to him in black and white. “And now I’ve been informed that, on top of the pressing issue of the children being in a home that drugs were being sold out of for what seems to have been years, both of their other caregivers are in police custody.”

“They won’t be returning to that apartment, and I have plenty of room for both while I look for a bigger place,” he reasoned. “My account is drained because I use everything I have every month to see to it they’re taken care of.”

“Well. I’m certain our investigation will take everything into consideration. We do want these children in a home that can look after them properly. Now, excuse me, I need to make a call. I’ll be right back.” With a narrow-eyed look that flashed her blue eyeliner, she took out her phone and stepped into an open exam room.

He went calmly back to the children, not wanting to frighten them any more than they already were. What the hell was he going to do? He couldn’t let his son and Alice be taken. They’d been placed in care before, and it meant practically moving heaven and earth to regain custody. Thomas ran a hand over his mouth, thinking. There was only one thing he _could_ do.

A great commotion set off in the visitation room - a man bellowing, throwing things. Something hit the closed door. The guard at the desk and the one who watched the waiting room jumped up, hurrying to tend to whatever was going on. Could he actually be this lucky?

He lifted Alice onto his hip and took Neal’s hand, helping him hop down from the plastic chair. “Come on. We’re going.”

“I was right about that lady?” Neal asked as they hurried off the ward and back in the direction of the elevators. 

“No. She isn’t taking anyone away,” he promised. “Quick, now. Like bunnies.”

It was snowing outside when they made it down to the hospital foyer. He pulled the little hats from his pocket, putting them snugly back onto Neal’s and Alice’s heads before they went out into it. The trunk of his nearly thirty-year-old, hand-me-down Cadillac held as many of the children’s belongings as he could fit that morning after receiving a call about the eviction. He had nothing of his own save what was on his back. They would manage. He buckled Alice into her carseat and Neal into his booster as quickly as he could.

Thomas was a split hair from panicking, himself, when the engine only made a grinding sound upon the turn of the key. He thumped his head on the steering wheel. “Come on. Please, come on. Just one more trip,” he whispered without knowing who he pled to.

He tried the engine again. It started right up.

“Thank you, thank you…” Putting the car in gear, he drove them away from the hospital, heading for the interstate.


	2. Chapter 2

Neal bumped his shoes against the back of the passenger seat. “Where are we going?”

“I’m not sure,” Thomas said after a short hesitation. He glanced in the rearview mirror to see his son looking out the car window. Alice was happily playing with a floppy fabric book he’d given her from the trunk on their last rest stop. “We’ll know when we get there.”

He’d never driven so far on his own. After leaving Boston, he followed the coast, not really certain what to do. All he knew was that they had to go. Everything after that, he was playing by ear. He was grateful for the nice view, at least, though it wasn’t much of a silver lining. He would take what he could get at this point.

Alice fell asleep first, around two hours into their trip, and Neal nodded off not too long after. He let them stay that way. None of them had eaten since the instant oatmeal he made for breakfast. Thomas knew they would be starving when they woke up. He had to find somewhere for them to eat and spend the night, but that was far easier said than done when resources were as thin as his had become.

The nearer dusk got, the more it snowed, and the harder it was to see. Visibility only grew worse when the road took him away from the coast and onto a stretch banked by miles of forest. His windshield wipers did very little to help. It was nearly dark when he passed a large green road sign he could only read in the instant he drove past it. _Entering Storybrooke._

He had been driving for five hours with few stops and he was bleary eyed, so hungry his stomach burned. They had to stop _somewhere._ This seemed like as good a place as any.

There was a bit more forest before he passed a nicer town sign on a stone base with ‘Welcome to Storybrooke’ painted across it, and the town itself was less than a quarter mile ahead. He had never seen so many Christmas lights. The entirety of Main Street glowed through the snow. He drove through until he saw a diner all lit up, and it looked like the perfect place to stop. Small, unassuming, quiet. No one was likely to find them staying the night in a town he hadn’t even seen on the map.

He parked on the street as near as he could, turning around to wake the children so that it wouldn’t be so difficult to get them out. Ducking his head against the weather, he liberated them from their seats and carried them inside, both still half asleep. The diner door hadn’t swung shut behind them before Neal took a deep inhale and raised his head from his father’s shoulder.

“Hungry,” he said, blinking himself more awake.

“I know. We’re going to eat _very_ soon now.” Thomas looked around until he found the little sign he needed. “Bathroom first, though.”

The men’s bathroom was blessedly empty. Cleaner than most he’d seen, as well. Still, he got Neal and Alice in and out as quickly as he could. He hung all their coats on a rack near the counter to let the snow dry off of them and took a booster seat from a stack for Neal on the way to an empty table. Alice was calmer sitting on his lap for meals these days.

He took out his wallet to see how much money he had left. Very little. There was the compulsion to check again, though, as if more might magically appear.

“Did we get there yet?” Neal asked, rubbing his hands back and forth across the top of the table.

“Hm?” Thomas looked up.

“You said you’d know when we got there,” his son reminded him.

He had been entertaining thoughts of Canada by that point, in all honesty. “I don’t- I don’t think so, love. We’re only here for dinner.”

Neal appeared to consider that for a moment. “Can I have chicken?”

“All the chicken you eat, you’re liable to turn into one,” he teased, smiling across the table. He touched the tip of his own nose, then reached out to touch his son’s. “Do I see a beak starting there?”

Neal clapped his hands over his face, giggling behind them, and Thomas caught Alice smiling. He gave her nose a gentle tap, too. For children who seemed to live half their lives in laughter, there had been far too little of it these last few days. 

A heavyset older lady with updone, steel gray hair and glasses on a chain came over. She placed a couple of menus and napkin-wrapped silverware sets on the table. 

“Nice night for getting out,” she observed, a little cheerfully sarcastic. “What can I get you?”

He slid a menu in front of him. Neal grabbed the other while he looked the prices over. “Two small orders of chicken strips. Milk, apple juice, and…” He couldn’t afford much more. Well, it wasn’t the first time he’d lived with a growling stomach. “A cup of tea.”

The lady fixed him with a curious look. “That’s all for you?”

“Thank you,” he said with a nod. 

Her expression didn’t fade as she gathered the menus and left. A tall young woman in scarlet lipstick and a waitress uniform brought over a plastic basket of crayons and a few coloring pages. She smiled at them and said, “Your food’ll be out soon,” before going back behind the counter.

With the menu prices in his head, he went back over the money situation while the children were entertained. After dinner, he’d have less than twenty dollars left. He wasn’t sure what the hell he was going to do without food and gas money. 

“We’ll be sleeping in the car,” he murmured to himself, rubbing over his eyes with one hand.

“Car?” The older lady tutted as though personally offended. She set plates of chicken strips and French fries down on the table from a larger tray. “Nonsense. You can’t sleep in a car. Not as cold as it’s going to be, and not with two little ones. Supposed to get down into the teens tonight.”

Thomas couldn’t respond for a moment, startled by her scolding. Then he recalled the sign out front. “You advertise rooms?”

He didn’t have enough for even a single night, he knew, and just the idea of skipping out on the bill made him itch with guilt. But she had a solid point about the weather. 

“Sorry, too close to Christmas,” she apologized with a shake of her her head. “Everything’s full through the New Year.”

“Are there any motels nearby?” he asked, taking a fry and putting it in Alice’s hand to stop her grasping for them.

“Closest is back up near the highway, but I wouldn’t chance that in this blizzard.”

Sleeping in the car was their only choice, then. He couldn’t help wondering what the point of shaming him for it was.

The terrifying red and blue dazzle of police lights flashed through the windows. They stopped just behind his car, lights going for another second before they went off. Fear prickled across his skin.

Leaning her hands on the back of the empty chair at the end of the table, the lady pursed her lips in thought. “Say, Ruby? Nobody’s made an offer on the Peterson house still, have they?”

Now at the register, the waitress who had brought over crayons bent to rest her arms on the counter. “Not that I’ve heard,” she called across the diner.

The older lady smiled down at Neal and Alice. She looked to Thomas. “If you go out just past the end of the business strip, off to your left when you leave here, there’s a few houses. You’re looking for a pretty little Victorian. Pink, green trim. The Peterson widow meant to leave it to her son, but he never did come back to claim it. Been… ten years now, likely. Wouldn’t be a bad place to wait out the snowstorm.”

Thomas was still staring up at her in something like hopeful disbelief when the cop came in. Ahead of him, he herded blonde man and a smaller woman with a black pixie cut carrying a little girl around Neal’s age. He shook snow off himself and stomped his boots on the heavy mat at the door.

“Granny, can I get some coffee?” The cop shed his hooded coat and tossed it across a chair near a heating vent. “Need to thaw a while.”

“Sure can,” she replied with a look over her shoulder at him. “I’ll fix you up a thermos when you’re ready to go back out, too.”

They couldn’t stay after all. Surely there’d been some notice sent out about them by now. If this man recognized him… Thomas frantically tried to count up how much the food amounted to.

“Found these three trying to make their way through town and had to guide them in. They have a reservation here,” the cop said. “It’s a mess out there. I’ll be fetching people out of it half the night.”

Granny flicked a look between Thomas and the cop. “You just finish your meal,” she told him. “Nothing you need to worry about out of Graham.”

The bell on the diner door jingled, and a down parka with a fur lined hood at one end and legs covered by navy tights on the other stumbled inside. An audible ‘brr’ sound came from within before the woman pushed her hood back from her face, letting a fall of dark auburn curls pour out.

“Soup today, Granny?” she asked.

“Chicken and dumplings. Thought people might be needing some fortification, day like today. Looks like I was right.” Granny grinned over at her. “Pretend to be shocked.”

The woman laughed, and it was such a nice, warm sound. She walked past their table on her way to sit at the counter, giving him a bright smile when their eyes met. Thomas didn’t think he had ever seen eyes such a pretty blue.

Graham - the sheriff, according to the patch on the coat left at the front - sat with his hands wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee at the far end of the counter. He hadn’t cast a single look back at them. Maybe Granny way right.

Thomas was cutting Alice’s chicken up into small bites when Ruby brought a plate of lasagna and piece of pie for each of them. She began setting it down on the table.

He shook his head. “Oh, no, no, please, I can’t-”

“On the house,” she said quietly, and she popped a piece of gum at the back of her mouth. “Everything is. Granny says, ‘can’t expect to keep up with two young’uns on an empty stomach.’” She smiled, winking over at the children before she walked away.


	3. Chapter 3

He resisted the urge to pound a fist on the steering wheel. The car would die a permanent death someday, likely soon with the way it behaved, but today was not that day. It couldn’t be. They couldn’t end up stranded here. Closing his eyes, Thomas took a deep breath and tried the engine again. It grinded once more and started up.

“Papa? Papa?” Neal pulled at his safety belt so he could lean up farther. “Papa? Are we going to that house that lady talked about?”

“I… don’t know.” He found his way back onto the road and crawled along through the snow. “I don’t know.”

He hadn’t any intention of stopping at the house Granny talked up. Not at first. It was too dangerous. Sleeping in an abandoned house in a town still too close to Boston for his comfort, where people had already seen them - it didn’t seem smart. But the snow fell heavier and heavier, until he was only able to judge by the dim glow of streetlamps and Christmas lights that he stayed somewhat on the road. 

The tall Queen Anne Victorian was the last thing he could see, and that only by the grace of the streetlamps directly in front of it. They were in a no-win situation. Sleep in the car, he ran the untenable possibility of freezing them all. Go inside, and they could very well just be waiting to be found and separated. He pulled into the drive, all the way up to the front steps, headlights marking a path in front of him. The unknown was better than risking Neal and Alice’s lives.

His son piped up excitedly from the back seat. “Is that it? Is that the house?”

Thomas released his seatbelt with a click. “I want you to stay where you are. I’m going to have a look.”

“Papa,” Neal began with a little frown.

“I’ll be able to see you the whole time,” Thomas said as he got out. “I’m going to find us a way in.”

The cold and wind sliced right through him. He held onto the rail and made his way up the steps. The small porch gave little shelter as he peered in the windows and tried the door that unsurprisingly turned out locked. Granny wouldn’t have encouraged him toward the house if there wasn’t a way inside, though, surely. 

Face tingling with cold, he looked beneath the mat and empty flower pots, finding nothing. He stretched up to run his fingertips over the top of the doorframe. A planter on the wall to the left of the door caught his eye, and he hazarded reaching over into it. His heart lurched with relief when he pulled out a keyring with a set of three keys on it. He unlocked the front door and left it ajar while he hurried back down to the car.

“We’ll stay ’til the storm breaks,” he said, leaning across Alice to unbuckle Neal’s safety belt before taking her out of her seat. “Come here. I need you to hold on tight, now.”

Neal wrapped his arms around his father’s neck. “We won’t get in trouble?”

“No trouble. We’ll be all right,” he promised, and he hefted both children out of the car in one go. Pushing the door closed with a creak he could hear even over the storm, he took them up to the porch, only setting Neal down when they were in the entryway.

The house was pitch black inside. Thomas took out his phone to use as a flashlight. Everything was covered with dropcloths, frozen in time with the death of its owner. The wind howled against the windows, and the house was almost as cold inside as out, but there was an odd sense of stillness within. Of peace. 

“Let’s see if we can find somewhere to get warm,” he whispered though there was no point to it.

There was no power, and while he happened across the occasional heating vent, there was no reason to imagine the gas to the furnace was on, either. The only source of warmth he could find was the living room fireplace. With Neal’s help in the form of holding the phone so that he could see what he was doing, Thomas opened the flue. He wasn’t sure how old the wood in the log basket was, but it caught just fine with a little paper for kindling. 

He let them bask in front of the hearth for a few minutes before saying, “Why don’t we explore a bit, hm?”

It wasn’t feasible to go back and get any of the children's bedding out of the car, so scavenging it was. Alice held onto the pocket of his coat and Neal walked just ahead of him, never out of reach of the phone’s light. They ventured upstairs. He found a linen chest in what appeared to be the master bedroom, filled with what looked like handmade afghans and quilts. Taking the pillows from beneath the dropcloth on the bed and an armful of quilts from the cedar chest, he herded the children back downstairs. 

Neal took the stairs with hops from each to the next, while Alice sat down at the top and plopped her way step to step on her bottom. It was never dull when he had them with him, he could say that much. They were a new adventure every day.

He helped them to bed down in front of the fireplace. Sitting on the floor near them, leaning against the front of a covered armchair and petting their hair in turns, he felt just how long the day had been. Alice tilted her head back to look at him as he ran his hand over her hat-squashed blonde fluff. For a second, he thought she might say something, but she only smiled. 

As much as he loved her, Alice wasn’t his. Not technically. She belonged to Milah’s boyfriend. Killian had brought her along as an infant from a previous relationship of his own. They’d been divorced for four years and some change, but she had moved her boyfriend into the apartment only days after he moved out. From the early days of their separation, Thomas had taken care of both babies more often than the two of them put together. The request to ‘take the kids off our hands’ was a constant one. She only ever wanted them with her to spite him in some way. They had better things to do than take care of either child, custody ruling or not, and it was just as well. 

Alice was the tiniest thing in the beginning, behind on her milestones until she was almost three. He had his suspicions as to why. Any criticisms of Milah’s boyfriend incited rage and accusations of jealousy, though, so he kept his mouth shut and gave wee Alice a piece of his heart right next to his son. He’d taken care of her so much by this point, he felt as though she may as well be his flesh and blood. 

He continued the story he’d been stringing together for years to lull them to sleep. Dragons and witches and creatures so tall they could blot out the sun, princes and princesses displaced from their worlds, a magic-wielding king who traveled through time to find his lost queen. The tale went on until he couldn’t hold his eyes open any longer.

Something woke him out of a dead sleep. He sat trying to get his bearings, remembering where they were, processing the muzzy feeling out of his head. Another knock rattled at the door. _That’s_ what it was.

He reached for the chair arm to push to his feet, flinching at aches borne from sleeping sitting up all night. Neal and Alice popped their heads free of their quilt cocoon. They looked at him with wide, startled eyes.

“It’s all right,” he told them. “Stay here where it’s warm.” 

The storm had broken, and sunlight streamed around a pair of figures visible on the other side of the stained glass. He could hear them bantering at one another. It seemed safe enough to open the door.

Two women, ladies who both looked not quite Granny’s age, turned their attention away from one another and onto him. He was met with big smiles and cheerful sounds. The entire lawn past them was solid white with snow.

“Oh, I told you it was too early to come over,” clucked the taller of the two, thin and dark-haired. “We’ve gone and wakened him.”

The other lady, with fair, curly hair and a sharp little nose, fluttered a dismissive hand. “It isn’t that early. By the by, we took it upon ourselves to turn on the gas and water.”

Thomas blinked. “You… can do that?”

With an utterly unrepentant smirk, the dark-haired woman tucked the water meter key and gas valve wrench still in hand into her large shoulder bag. “Well, we did, didn’t we?”

“Oh, what a handsome lad you turned out,” the blonde woman cooed, reaching up to pat his face.

He was left flustered and warm-cheeked as they walked past him into the house. They headed toward the living room, and he was trying to come up with something to say about the children when he saw they were no longer on the pallet of quilts he made for them.

“We’ve brought you breakfast,” the dark-haired lady told him.

The blonde woman held up a covered baking dish filled with some manner of pastries. “Raspberry jam frangipanes,” she said proudly. “I remembered how you loved them, and I just couldn’t not make a batch to welcome you back, dear.”

She set the dish on the coffee table and both women started pulling dropcloths off the furniture, carefully folding the dust inside them. Between them, they talked about him. Or about whomever they thought he was. They told snippets of stories back and forth with such certainty that he thought he could almost bring up memories to go along with their tales. 

The dark-haired woman folded the cloth away from a table at the back of the sofa. “Necie, didn’t you teach that Boyd girl from the power company?” she asked, looking up at the light fixture in the ceiling.

“Lord, yes. Violin every Tuesday afternoon for eight years. That child broke more strings than a baseball has. Far better suited to flute, but her step-mother wouldn’t have it.” The blonde lady, apparently Necie, stopped mid-fold. “Oh! Bea, yes, I could have a talk with Ashley. She owes me for a string a week, and that’s at a conservative estimate.”

Bea looked to him with a firm nod. “We’ll have your electricity on before the end of the day, mark my words.”

“I’m so sorry,” Necie began, turning to him, “but it’s been so many years, dear. Neither of us can remember your name.”

“It’s just shameful,” Bea admitted.

“And we can’t exactly go on calling you ‘Rumple’ at this age, now can we?” Necie said with a fond grin. “I’m sure you aren’t perpetually wrinkled about the clothes anymore.”

He hesitated. It couldn’t hurt to give them his first name, he supposed. “Thomas? It- it’s Thomas.”

“That’s it!” Bea snapped her fingers in recognition. “Our little Tam! Oh, my goodness, yes.”

Thomas’ mouth hung open. It wasn’t an unusual short form, by any means. Particularly with older generations and certain areas. Still, it was an odd feeling for anyone not his ex-wife or father to call him by it.

Necie glanced at the slender, pearl band watch on her wrist. “Oh, we need to be going.”

“We’ll be by again to help you with these covers and such,” Bea promised. 

Before he could react, she’d leaned to press a quick kiss to his cheek. Necie followed suit, placing a hand on his shoulder as she kissed the opposite cheek, giving it another affectionate pat. He trailed along to see them out the door, not quite knowing what else to do.

“You’ll come over soon, won’t you?” Necie asked as she stepped out onto the porch. “We’re only just next door. The purple house. Same as we’ve always been.”

“Yes, yes, come and visit,” Bea agreed, taking Necie’s arm before they started down the snowy steps. “We’ll have some chocolate pie and reminisce.”

Necie gave him a wave and they headed down the driveway. Someone had shoveled the sidewalk, he noticed. 

“Neal, Alice,” he called after locking the door. 

When he stepped back into the living room, he found them devouring frangipane tarts as quickly as they could cram their mouths full. He risked a hand by reaching in for one. Sitting down in an uncovered chair, he waited for them to fill their tummies. 

“We need to go,” he said once they were full enough to lick jam from their fingers rather than reach for another tart. “Where are your hats?”

Neal looked to his father, but his gaze strayed back to the pastries. “Can we take them?”

He located their hats in the quilts and got them back on their respective heads, buttoned the children into their coats, and managed to get everyone back in the car in under half an hour. He should have known it was too easy.

The engine wasn’t in the mood to cooperate. It hadn’t started on the first try in months, though. After a good deal of pleading, he tried again. He was rewarded with only the same grinding noise. 

In the rearview mirror, he saw a police cruiser pull up behind him. A familiar cop got out and made his way toward them.

“No, come on, please…” he breathed, trying the engine again. And again. 

The sheriff tapped on the driver’s window with the knuckle of his index finger. Thomas swallowed down the panic that tried to rise in his throat.

“Stay in the car,” he told Neal before opening the door.

He expected to be confronted, to be faced with accusations. To his surprise and relief, the sheriff didn’t look as if he had bad news of any sort.

“Sheriff Graham Humbert,” the man introduced himself. He looked into the back seat window and waved at the children. “I saw you in Granny’s last night. Glad you got out of the weather okay.”

Thomas nodded. “It was a bit close there.”

“You’re having engine trouble?” Graham asked as though half the neighborhood couldn’t likely hear the awful sound.

Shrugging helplessly, Thomas gestured at the hood of the car. “Having _something_ trouble. I can usually get it started after a while, but-”

“That’s the thing with engine problems. Never does work itself out.” The sheriff took a step past him. “Mind if I have a look?”

If it reassured Graham in any way, he thought he’d do just about anything. He reached in and pulled the hood release. 

“You’re not leaving us already?” the sheriff asked as he ducked underneath.

“Supermarket,” Thomas claimed. “The kitchen is a little low on supplies.”

Up the street, a car left its driveway, continuing slowly instead of speeding up to leave. It stopped just next to him and the driver rolled the window down.

“Hey,” greeted a woman with blue eyes and a bright smile that he recognized from the diner. “Everything all right?”

“Doubt it. Going to have to call the tow truck,” Graham decided. He put the hood down with a reverberating _clang._ “Belle, would you mind letting our friend here hitch a ride to the grocery store? I have to peel Leroy out of the drunk tank and get him home.”

She propped an arm on the window sill, smiling up at Thomas. “I don’t mind at all.”


	4. Chapter 4

Thomas moved the children’s seats and then Neal and Alice themselves into the back seat of Belle’s sky blue Jetta while the sheriff called to have his car towed in. Graham offered to wait for the tow truck, citing the likelihood that Leroy would sleep ’til noon. It should have been awkward to get into a stranger’s car. He was just glad to be out of the sheriff’s company.

“You look like you enjoyed your breakfast,” Belle said as he put on his seatbelt, and it took him a moment to realize she spoke to Alice.

“I think we were visited by a pair of pastry fairies?” He looked into the back seat to find a smear of red from the corner of Alice’s mouth nearly to her ear. They’d been in such a rush, he hadn’t thought to check how much jam ended up _on_ them.

“Beatrix and Necie Weaver!” Belle giggled and backed out of the driveway. “Yeah, they tend heavily toward plying neighbors with sweets. The more they like you, the more you get.”

He was still trying to decide what to do about the jam on Alice’s face. It had only been months since he stopped carrying a diaper bag, though sans diapers anymore, and he still had frequent regrets about that. Regrets that mostly revolved around baby wipes.

“They swept in and out and left behind a baking dish full of frangipanes,” he said, finally licking his thumb and stretching back.

Her eyebrows went up. “Wow. That’s- they _really_ like you. Oh, wait, here.” She reached for the glove compartment, popping it open and handing him a package of wet naps. “It might be good if I’d introduce myself, huh? Belle French. I’m your neighbor kind of across and down a house.”

He cleaned Alice’s face, patiently following her squirms until he got all of the jam, and gave Neal a once over just in case. “I guessed you were a neighbor when I saw you come from across the street,” he said with a smile, folding the flimsy bit of damp paper into a small square. “I’m-”

“Tam Peterson,” she cut in. In response to his alarmed look, Belle pressed her lips together over an almost sheepish smile. “Sorry. Half the town probably knows you’re back by now. Necie called me early to explain about my ‘new old neighbor.’”

It was a _strange_ feeling, the Weaver ladies thinking they knew him, and even stranger that they were spreading the assumption. And he couldn’t correct them without risking everything.

“Bea and Necie are… well, they make everything their business,” Belle said with a grin. “Should I call you Thomas? Would you prefer that? Was calling you Tam to familiar?”

He relaxed a bit under the cadence of her chatter. “‘Tam’ is fine. These are Neal and Alice.”

“It’s wonderful to meet all of you,” she declared as they got into the main part of town.

Storybrooke was apparently one of those places that went all in on Christmas decorations. He’d never seen a town so decorated to the hilt, from store windows right down to the lamp posts and parking meters. Store signs were hung with greenery, street signs tied up with jolly red bows, and everything glittered with strings of lights. Somehow it managed to make him feel nostalgic for something he had never really had. 

Thomas looked back at the children, finding Neal staring out the window at the decorations with his mouth agape. It occurred to him that neither his son nor Alice had ever seen anything like it either. It was about time that changed.

“They’re so quiet,” Belle said, glancing first to him and then in the mirror. “Are you guys shy?”

Before he could say anything, Neal answered, _“I’m_ not shy. I’m just full. Alice didn’t used to be shy, but maybe she is now.”

A curious expression crossed her face, but she didn’t ask what he meant, to Thomas’ relief. She did, however, ask, “So, where are you from?”

It was the kind of question anyone would ask. Small talk. He tried not to be weird about it. “Massachusetts.”

“Funny, you don’t sound like you’re from Massachusetts,” she teased.

A smile tugged at the corner of Thomas’ mouth. “Might’ve moved from Glasgow ten or so years ago.”

“I thought that was Scottish I heard.” Belle stopped to allow a ginger man and his Dalmatian to cross the street. “Can I ask what you do for a living?”

“I’m between jobs.” That wasn’t exactly a lie. “It’s why we left Boston. Hoping to start fresh.”

“Stars!” Neal gasped as they passed the library, where a trio of big, shimmery gold stars lit up in an arch over the entrance, lights inside them twinkling slowly.

Belle smiled. “Those are my stars you’re admiring!”

“Yours?” he asked, not taking his eyes off them as she drove by until he physically had to. 

“Mmhm. I’m the librarian,” she told him. “There are some inside, too. You should come in and have a look, get library cards for everyone.”

Neal gave another, more dramatic gasp. “Papa, _can_ we?”

“We’ll see,” Thomas allowed.

Looking in the rearview mirror again, Belle said, “I love your hats. Especially yours, Alice. Rabbits are one of my very favorite animals.”

Thomas felt a flash of worry. Alice’s rabbit lovey. He couldn’t remember if he grabbed it from the piles of belongings on the sidewalk outside the apartment complex or not. 

Alice looked from Belle to Thomas and reached up with small, mittened hands, pulling the edge of her hat down over her eyes.

With a smothered laugh, Belle nodded. “All right. You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to.”

“It’s nothing personal,” Thomas assured her. “She doesn’t talk to anyone lately.”

The grocery store wasn’t big, but he didn’t expect it to be. All he needed - all he could afford - were essentials. Which made it difficult when Neal stopped to gaze up at the tall, gloriously decorated tree just inside the doors.

Neal pulled at his father’s coat until he leaned down. “Papa, can we get a Christmas tree?”

“We can’t afford one just now,” Thomas told him quietly. He _loathed_ saying those words to his son, but the boy had heard them so often that there was hardly a pout anymore.

He lifted Neal into the back of a shopping cart. Alice, of course, remained on his hip and hung onto the shoulder of his coat. Belle was kind enough to steer the cart so that he could walk alongside.

“I’m sure you have better things to do than lollygag with us in the store,” he said by way of something like an apology.

“Nonsense,” Belle dismissed cheerfully. “It’s a nice change of pace, and I remember what it was like to be new in town. Besides, the library doesn’t even open for another hour.”

“You’re not from around here,” came out of his mouth before he could stop it. He mentally kicked himself. Of course she wasn’t. Her accent haled from somewhere else altogether.

She kindly didn’t point that out, though. “Australia. I’ve been here almost… nine years, now. Spent my entire life in my hometown before I moved here just about the time the previous librarian retired to move cross-country to be with her daughter and grandkids. I _have_ a degree in library science, and I really should have been an assistant or something first, but they needed someone right away and I was here,” she rambled on comfortably, and he found himself soothed by her voice. “I sort of jumped at the chance with both feet.”

“I’m sure no one could blame you for that. A job that good falling into your lap is the dream,” he pointed out.

“Right?” She looked over at him, meeting his eyes. “Kismet.” 

A quick, warm little thrill ran its fingers across his ribcage in response to her look. It was unnerving, and he had to force himself to bring his attention back to anything else.

He put the barest of essentials into the cart around Neal. Supplies for simple meals over the course of a few days, which would hopefully be the longest they’d be in town. There was just enough money to swing it. What he was going to do about having the car fixed, though, he didn’t know.

“Don’t be surprised if you have all sorts of noses in your business,” Belle said as he reached for a bag of golden apples. “It’s such a small town, and new people are few and far between. People will be interested.”

Thomas wasn’t particularly comforted by the sound of that, but he couldn’t be all that surprised, either. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

“Papa?” Reaching up, Neal tugged at his father’s coat sleeve again. “Look. Can we get it?”

His son pointed to a package of cookies shaped and iced to look like reindeer on the bakery shelf. The cookies weren’t expensive. But they were too expensive for him to afford. Not when they had to buy real food. 

“Why don’t I get that?” Belle offered. “My treat. A new neighbor present, since I can’t actually bake.”

“Thank you, but no, I can’t let you do that,” he said. He looked to his son. “I’m sorry. Maybe another time, love.”

Neal sank down to sit, leaning against the small bag of potatoes next to him. Thomas felt like an absolute heel, but there was nothing to be done about it. 

His car was gone when Belle pulled back into the Victorian’s driveway, and though he knew it was at what was likely the only auto shop in town, all he could feel was dread.

“Hey, if you need to go anywhere, let me know and I can pick you up. Or I can have somebody I trust pick you up if work is busy,” she said, taking a couple of bags despite him trying to hurry and get them all himself. “I don’t mind at all.”

He shook his head. “That’s kind of you, but-”

“Oh, and we’re having special storytime at the library the next couple of weeks leading up to Christmas.” Belle stood by, waiting for him to juggle things around and get the door unlocked. “It starts at eleven every Tuesday and Friday, and there are snacks for kids and parents both afterward. You should bring Neal and Alice.”

Thomas stopped and stared at her while she had her back to him, setting the grocery bags on the counter next to the stove. She was so sweet, not an ounce of unkindness to her. He felt all the worse about his deceit by omission. 

“I might just do that,” he half agreed. If they were still in town. If he felt safe venturing out.

“Okay, I have to go. Stuff to get in order, library to open.” She put a hand on his arm as he reached to set a carton of eggs down. “Can I put my number in your phone?”

“Oh. Uh…” was the extent of his ability to make words all of a sudden. Her hand had something to do with it. He took his phone from his pocket and gave it to her, and she handed it right back with her number added in.

Belle wiggled her fingers in a wave at Neal and Alice. “Have a good day!” 

She was gone. Thomas felt a bit stunned. It took him a moment to recall how to put groceries away.

“Does this mean we’re staying?” Neal asked softly from his seat at the kitchen table.

“For a little while.” They couldn’t precisely go anywhere without a car, anyway. He didn’t know what to do about that, and he tried not to think about it in an immediate way. Thinking about it gave him a panicky feeling in his chest. 

He emptied the bag that held bread and cereal, finding something that _he_ hadn’t put in the cart in the bottom. Reindeer cookies, quite familiar. There was no way Neal could have snuck them in - his son hadn’t been out of his sight. Belle, however, had stepped away for a couple of minutes _and_ had helped to load the groceries while he put the children back into their seats. 

“My goodness. Look what I found.” Thomas took the box out and set it on the table. 

Neal lit up. “Miss Belle bought it?”

“You’ll have to thank her when you see her again,” he told his son.

With a bright smile, Neal asked, “Will we see her again?”

Thomas busied himself popping the plastic cookie box open, trying to push away the feeling that he very much hoped they would.


	5. Chapter 5

He’d only just gotten Neal and Alice entertained with opened up grocery bags, pencils, and a challenge to create their own Christmas decorations, when there came a knock at the front door. There was a single silhouette this time, taller and larger. Thomas lamented the lack of a peephole. 

His stomach turned when he opened the door to find the sheriff on the other side. It took him a full few seconds to register the boxes that the man held, rather than just a cop’s presence there.

“Mr. Peterson?” The way Graham said it sounded as if it weren’t the first time he had. “I thought you and the kids might want your things from the trunk of the car.”

Before Thomas could manage to thank him, or to say anything at all, Alice came trotting out from the living room. She opened her arms, reaching up, her hands opening and closing toward a pair of long, white ears hanging over the top box’s edge.

“This?” the sheriff asked, balancing the boxes so that he could take the rabbit out. He offered it to her.

Beaming, Alice hugged the bunny close and nuzzled her face into the nubbly fabric of its head. Thomas petted her hair, and she shuffled closer to lean against his leg.

“Thank you,” he said, meaning it. 

“Not a problem.” Graham hefted the boxes higher with a knee. 

Thomas reached out to accept their things. The boxes weren’t as heavy as they looked, mostly clothing and bedding with a few toys crammed in. He had to wonder what the sheriff thought of it all being stuffed into the trunk without a box or a suitcase in sight.

“Have you happened to hear anything about my car?” he asked as Graham set the second box on top.

“Michael - that’s Michael Tillman, he owns the auto shop - he says he’ll know something by the evening at latest,” the sheriff said. “I’ll have him give you a call.”

“Thank you,” Thomas said again, trying not to look as suspicious as he felt.

The sheriff left and he took the boxes into the living room, setting them near the children’s pallet. Both began digging through, excited to have a few familiar belongings. 

After rounding them up to eat lunch, Thomas sat on the uncovered sofa, watching as Neal sorted through a shoebox of Legos. He had Alice tucked under one of his arms while she actively appreciated the return of her lovey. It hadn’t been out of her hands since Graham returned it to her.

“Who is this, hm?” he asked her, touching the bunny’s stitched pink nose, hoping to encourage her to talk. “Do you remember his name? I bet you don’t.”

Alice gave him a look up through her lashes, stubborn and almost chiding. She lifted a hand to pat his nose. 

“Oh, aren’t you a little card.” He snugged her close to his side, ducking his head to press a kiss to the top of hers. “We’ll get you talking again. We’ll be okay.”

Another knock at the door echoed through the first floor of the house. Thomas sighed. He’d never had so much company when he had a home that _was_ his. Leaving Alice on the sofa, he straightened his sweater and ran a hand down the front of it before going into the entryway to find a shape he thought he already knew on the other side of the stained glass. Sure enough, Necie Weaver stood there when he opened the door.

“Hello again!” she chirped with a smile. “Michael misplaced your number, so he called us and asked if we might give you a message about your car.” Necie peered past him into the entryway. “Oh, dear. Has Ashley not turned your power on yet? That girl, I swear to goodness.”

He heard small, ostensibly sneaking footsteps. Necie gave a small wave toward the living room archway.

“Hello, Neal. Hello, Alice,” she said.

Thomas blinked at her calling them by name.

“I called down to the library, had a chat with Belle,” Necie told him with a sly wink. “What darlings. Look at them. What was I saying? Ah! Michael said something about… the… head gasket ‘blew’ and oil has leaked onto the engine. Which means the engine has to be taken apart.”

He leaned on the door handle. “That’s bad.”

“Quite, as I understand,” Necie agreed. “‘It would be easier to buy a new car’ I believe is the way he put it.”

“New car,” Thomas breathed, or tried to. “I can’t buy a new car.”

She shrugged in a quick motion. “Oh, a loan would be the easiest thing in the world to get, your house here as collateral, dear.”

“I can’t-” He swallowed hard. He really did feel the need to sit down. “I can’t do that.”

“Michael gave me an estimate on the repair for you.” Necie fished in the pockets of her heavy cardigan, pulling out a folded sticky note. “Sixteen hundred…?”

“Might as well be a million,” he murmured to himself.

“I take it that’s a problem,” she said sympathetically. Reaching up, Necie gave him a fond pat on the chest. She turned, going on while she made her way back down the front steps. “It’ll all sort out. No worries, dear. All right, I have chicken pinwheels in the oven. I should get back. I’m going to _personally_ have Ashley turn the danged power back on, you see if I don’t.”

Thomas closed the door, pressing his forehead to the freezing glass. He had never known anything to sort out. Not well. 

He heard a sneaker squeak on the wooden floor and remembered that Neal and Alice still stood behind him. Pushing down the feeling of desperation, he pulled a smile to his face. “I think it might be time for another one of those cookies.”


	6. Chapter 6

Belle hefted the box of books from the back seat of her car, balancing them against the wall as she opened the sheriff’s office door. A small place like Storybrooke, her bookmobile efforts were only needed perhaps once a month. Even then she most often fetched them back unread from the jail. But when Leroy was in a bad way, he did enjoy a good Arthur Conan Doyle. 

“We haven’t had an internet connection since Thursday night!” she heard Deputy Lance Lapointe say as she walked into the bullpen. “Are you kidding me? We can’t run a sheriff’s office like this. Yeah, well, comping the time since it’s been down is nice and all, but it doesn’t help us right now. No, don’t transfer m-” He whacked the phone against his forehead a couple of times before looking at Graham. “They transferred me again.”

“Making any headway?” Graham asked.

“I might actually be going backwards.” Officer Lapointe frowned at the phone and brought it back to his ear. “This is ridiculous. I mean, what if there’s a fugitive? What if we miss a BOLO?”

Graham shook his head, waving Belle on in. “Lance, how often do we get a BOLO out here?”

“You don’t know. We could get one.” Lance turned to Belle with a sudden, broad smile. “Heard about your shopping trip with the Peterson boy.”

“Boy?” She snorted softly, setting the box down on the nearest desk. He was a couple of decades past ‘boy.’ “I took him to get a few things at the store. That’s all.”

“According to Mulan, you were enjoying yourself,” he nudged.

“I was _helping_.” Belle looked over to Mulan’s desk, but her friend was incredibly busy with a file. She felt herself being defensive and couldn’t even justify why. “He has two kids. I thought he could use a little help.”

Lance waggled his eyebrows. “I’m sure he could.”

“I have things to do that don’t involve being teased on a sixth grade level,” she said, needling him a bit in return.

His attention snapped back to the phone. “What do you _mean_ you can’t send a technician out?”

“Good luck with that. Maybe they’ll turn out nicer to you than you are to me,” Belle teased. She swatted at the sleeve of Graham’s jacket on her way out, taking the old box of books before she headed toward the hospital to drop off a couple of new ones. 

~ ~~ 。~~ ~

It was only right that Bea Weaver dropped by just as they were starting dinner. Everyone else had. The day might have felt incomplete otherwise, Thomas supposed. He invited her in with a step aside and a gesture, and she held a not inconsiderably sized Tupperware container out to him. 

“Mashed potatoes,” she informed him with a quick nod when he took it. “I mashed them with broth, just in case you or the little ones might have tummy issues with milk. One never does know.”

“Oh. We- we don’t, but the thought is appreciated.” He smiled at the consideration she’d taken. From the corner of his eye, he saw Neal run to the kitchen, and he had a feeling his son was going to retrieve utensils. He took a step back in the living room’s direction. “Please, come in.”

They were only having bologna sandwiches. Mashed potatoes didn’t quite _go_ with them, if you were being particular, but the three of them weren’t. They’d had far worse. Neal hurried back, plucking the bowl from his father’s hand, and took it over to their spot in front of the fireplace.

Bea sat in the armchair nearest the fire. “I meant to mention it yesterday, but I suppose I had too much on my mind. Your mother’s lawyer has all the paperwork and such you’ll need. He’d have contacted you by now, if he were in town like a proper lawyer should be,” she said with no small amount of judgement.

“Lawyer?” Thomas felt as though he might swallow his tongue. That would have solved dinner for him all around.

“Albert is in… Aspen, or some such as that. Skiing.” She waved a hand dismissively. “He’s meant to be back after Christmas. But he’ll know all the ins and outs of your mother’s estate.”

After Christmas. That gave them not quite three weeks. If the police didn’t find him first, anyway. “Thank you. I’ll get in contact with him when he’s in town again.”

“Oh, he’ll come by, I’m certain.” Bea gave Alice a warm smile as the little girl approached her with a small square of sandwich in offering. She leaned down, arms folded on her knees to make herself nearer Alice’s height. “Thank you ever so, dear, but I’ve already had my dinner. I’m full up. You enjoy yours.”

At that, Alice patted Bea’s knee and went back to her seat near the fireplace, plopping down.

“Such darlings,” Bea said as she stood. “You take care of one another.”

By the time she’d gone, Thomas found Neal and Alice already tucked into the bowl of mashed potatoes with their spoons. He probably should have made them put some on plates, but there wasn’t much use in it now. The children had absolutely no concept of food matching - a fact for which he was often grateful. He sat down and accepted the third spoon from his son.

“Papa, isn’t a lawyer coming a bad thing?” Neal asked, poking around in one side of the potatoes before taking another bite.

“It’s okay,” Thomas told him. “We won’t be here by the time the lawyer gets back to town.”

“But our car…”

“We’ll have the car by then.”

After a few moments, Neal said quietly, “But don’t we need money for our car to be fixed?”

Thomas remained upbeat, having no intention of worrying them. “I’m going to find a job. Of some kind. I’ll pay to have the car fixed. It’s all going to be all right,” he assured his son.

If social services hadn’t filed a report with the police yet, and the sheriff hadn’t said or done anything about them being there, then he was reasonably sure that no one knew where they were. It was entirely possible that he _did_ have time to earn enough money to pay for the repairs. They only had to be careful.

When the children had finished eating, their attention having drifted away, he began gathering their things to take back to the kitchen. Almost just as he stood, the lamps around the living room and the chandelier overhead all lit up. Various household whirrs filled the quiet.

“Lights!” Neal said, and in an instant, his dropped jaw turned into a wide open smile. “How’d that happen?”

There was a bit of a rumble, as if the house took a breath. Thomas leaned to put a hand over one of the floor vents. Air began coming through, quickly turning warm.

“I have a feeling the Weaver ladies went down to the office in person.” He grinned. They certainly knew how to get things done. “How would you two like to sleep in a bed tonight? No more camping in front of the fireplace?”

Neal’s eyes went wider. “One of those big bedrooms upstairs?”

“Why not? Your choice,” he told his son. It couldn’t hurt.

“C’mon, let’s go see!” Taking Alice’s hand, Neal pulled her a couple of steps before she began running along with him, bunny ears flopping over her arm as they made their way up the stairs.

Thomas leaned a hip against the post at the foot, watching them go up. Harder than he had ever wished for anything, he wished they could just _stay._


	7. Chapter 7

Waking up to the tall brunette with red lipstick from the diner knocking at the door was not the way Thomas had expected to begin his day. 

“Hi!” she said with such an amount of cheer that it made him look at his watch. Five past ten. They’d slept longer than he realized.

“Morning,” he responded anyway. 

“Belle sent me,” the young woman clarified before he could show too much confusion. “I’m Ruby. We met at the diner the other night? Kind of in passing?”

He nodded, memory sufficiently jogged. “I remember.”

“Belle asked me to drop by and see if you guys need a ride into town,” Ruby said. “She told me to remind you that the storytime thing is this morning, too.”

It took him a long, bleary moment to bring together her words and enough awake brain cells to understand them. “That would be nice,” he finally replied. “Do you mind waiting while I get my kids ready?”

Her smile was broad and blinding. She stepped inside when he moved out of the doorway. “Not a bit!”

Thomas left her in the living room, going back up to waken Neal and Alice. They were still out cold when he turned the overhead light on. Neal was curled up on his side, while Alice sprawled wide across most of the bed’s width, her head thrown back off the side of the pillow, her mouth wide open. Her bunny lay squashed underneath her back.

He sat down on the bed, giving them each a gentle pat to begin wakening them. “Who wants to go to storytime?”

Alice sat bolt upright, eyes squinted in the light, her hair in knots and snarls that evidenced how she had enjoyed sleeping in the fancy bed. The promise of storytime was enough to get her day started. His son took a little more convincing.

“We’ll go to the library, see Belle again, get library cards…” Thomas told him, and Neal uncurled, lifting his feet to kick the covers off.

“Can we really?” Neal asked, his question garbled by a big yawn.

“Mmhm,” Thomas hummed. “But we’ll need to brush teeth and get fresh clothes on.”

It was fairly easy to get them started in the bathroom with that. He set them about brushing their teeth while he sorted out clothes for each of them from the boxes he’d set in the hallway before going to bed the night before. He had no more clothes of his own, and he would have to fix that sooner than later. 

They didn’t need more encouragement downstairs. He had to call them back to run a damp comb through their hair to tame it somewhat. When he looked in the mirror, he discovered that Ruby must surely have an excellent straight face, if she’d seen what he saw and not laughed at him. He put the comb to his own hair and got them all into their coats, making certain the children had hats and mittens on, and neither had stray toothpaste anywhere. 

While they’d been busy getting ready, Ruby had been busy getting rid of the rest of the dropcloths downstairs. She met them at the front door with a smile.

“Ready?” she asked.

He mentally went over everything before deciding, “As ready as possible.”

Thomas had more than storytime in mind. It couldn’t hurt to let Neal and Alice sit in on the story, but the library was likely to have a job board of some kind. It was his best chance for getting a good local job. If he were being honest with himself, seeing Belle might have had something to do with accepting a ride into town, too.

The trip only took a couple of minutes. It could have been very easily walked, if not for the snow and temperature and two small children he’d have had to tow along in it. As things were, he was grateful that Belle had procured him a ride and that Ruby was willing to provide it.

“When you’re ready to go home, I’m just down at the diner,” Ruby told him as he helped Neal and Alice out of her little red car. “Granny won’t mind if I take a break to run you back.”

He thanked her, and he had said those two words more in the last couple of days than he’d had occasion to in months. It was strange to have so many people just offering their kindness to him. He couldn’t help feeling as though he were unworthy of it. Maybe this Thomas Peterson they mistook him for was, but he felt a little like a thief, accepting kindnesses that weren’t meant for him.

Neal dawdled, gazing at the decorations around the front of the library, and had to be pulled along inside. There was no one at the front desk when they approached, but there _were_ more Christmas decorations. The desk, the computer bank, the ends of the stacks and the new book display were all merry and bright with holiday finery. Thomas was caught up in admiring it, himself, when a redhead came out of the office.

“Hi!” she greeted them. “Can I help you with something?”

“Is Belle around?” he asked.

“Oh!” Her face brightened further. _“You_ must be Thomas.”

And he was brought up short once again. “I… am.”

“Ariel Halloran, assistant librarian. It’s nice to meet you.” She set down the stack of children’s books she held. “Belle’s in with storytime. She likes to stay and listen when we have a guest reader. Right through there, to the kids’ section,” she said, pointing around the corner.

There were upward of two dozen small children beginning to get seated in a wide semi-circle on the floor. They placed themselves around an older gentleman wearing an exceptionally festive sweater vest. Neal and Alice remained hovering nearby, and Thomas squatted down with them.

“You can go over,” he told them. “Sit with the others, listen to the story. I’ll be right here.”

They went on under his encouragement. He watched as Neal took Alice’s hand to walk her over, finding an empty spot for them to sit. On his other side sat a little blonde-haired girl just about his age, and standing among the parents, Thomas recognized the couple that the sheriff brought into the diner that first night. 

With a quick little wave down by her side, Belle caught his attention and beckoned him over. She reached out for his arm when he got close. The man at the front of the room began reading the first lines of _A Visit from St. Nicholas_ and all of the chatter stopped for it.

“Marco Geppetto,” Belle whispered over to him. “He’s our local… well, lots of things. He does woodwork and tinkering type stuff. If you need something fiddly fixed, chances are he can fix it. He has a shop next to the hardware store.”

“He sounds handy to have around,” Thomas said, and he took such a long time working himself up to what he meant to ask that every second felt as if it added to the awkwardness. 

Before he managed it, Belle turned to him again. “There’s going to be an event here on Christmas Eve. We’ll have Santa, some little gifts, more food,” she tempted, and the way she pinched her lower lip between her teeth said she knew that she did. “Please come and bring the kids?”

He couldn’t even be certain they would be there on Christmas Eve. The look she gave him was so hopeful, though. As if she actually wanted them there.

“Yeah. Yes. We could do that,” he said with a nod, and she grabbed his upper arm through his coat in an expression of excitement. Thomas’ ears went warm. He cleared his throat, trading one awkward feeling for another. “Speaking of shops. Would you happen to have a job board? Anything of that sort?”

“Ooh, you know- well, I mean, I do. But there’s something. A friend of mine, his dishwasher and delivery person ran off together and eloped just last week. You could try there first?” she suggested. “It’s the Italian restaurant on First Street. _La Tavola_. Dove Mawr is the owner.”

He refused to be overly optimistic about her suggestion. The chances of being hired for anything without providing a resume were almost nothing. Delivery wouldn’t bring in much income - certainly not enough to pay for the repairs he needed in two weeks - but it would be something. Maybe he could make a deal of some sort with the mechanic… 

“Is it all right if I leave Neal and Alice here while I talk to him?” Thomas asked. He’d have to wait until the story was over to explain to them where he was going. Leaving them anywhere without a discussion about it was a bad idea for two children whose lives had been juggled around so often.

She glanced over at Neal and Alice, their attention firmly on Marco’s enthusiastic storytelling, and looked back to him. “Of course it is. I’ll keep an eye on them. Tell Dove I sent you.”


	8. Chapter 8

The restaurant’s welcome bell chimed over Thomas’ head as he stepped inside. There was still time before a lunch rush, and servers were preparing tables around the few customers there. He approached a young woman setting out napkins.

“Is Mr. Mawr in?” he asked, slipping his hands into his coat pockets to hide the way his fingers fidgeted.

She pointed to the rear of the restaurant, toward a pair of swinging doors. “He’s in the kitchen. Go on back.” 

He could hear the bustle of food preparation from inside as he got close. ‘Tall’ didn’t describe the man Thomas saw at the end of the counter when he pushed through one door. The kitchen staff moved around a bald, muscular colossus of a man with more than a solid foot of height over himself. He was cooking something, working at plating it up.

“Don’t worry. I’ll see to it,” the man said in a voice so deep that it cut right through the kitchen noise. He took a phone from between his shoulder and ear, setting it on the counter. 

Thomas had to remind himself that he needed this job to fix his car and get out of town before he could move forward again. “Mr. Mawr?”

“Call me Dove,” the man said, grating onto a sizable plate of pasta and breaded chicken from a block of hard white cheese.

“I was told you might have a job opening,” Thomas began. He steeled himself, getting ready to make a case for it.

“Do you mind making deliveries around town? Washing dishes in between?” Dove rumbled, looking at him for the first time since he’d walked in. “I do have a machine. You wouldn’t be doing it all by hand.”

Laughing in relief, Thomas said, “At this point, I’d be _willing_ to wash them by hand.”

Dove gave him a decisive nod. “Be here by ten tomorrow morning. We serve lunch and dinner. Deliveries stop at eight-thirty, and we close at nine. The afternoon is light duty, not many deliveries or dishes ’til dinner prep starts.”

“Don’t you need me to fill out an application? Don’t you want a résumé? References?” he asked out of surprise, and he kicked himself as soon as it began coming out of his mouth. He’d talk the man out of hiring him at that rate.

“You’re a friend of Belle’s,” Dove said with a grin. “That’s the best reference I could get. And I’m desperate for help.”

“Thank you.” Thomas offered his hand, and his new employer accepted the gesture with a firm but careful handshake. 

He stepped back, anticipating reassuring his son that everything was going to be just fine. It occurred to him that he’d have to get someone to look after the children while he worked. He wondered whether his neighbors would be able and interested.

“Where are you going?” Dove asked as he reached for the back pocket of his slacks. “Hold your horses.” He took out his wallet and sorted a few bills from it, holding them out insistently.

Thomas took them, though he was a little confused. “What is this for?”

“Call it a Christmas bonus,” Dove told him. “On the basis of how grateful I am for your help.”

He stared at the money, having to force himself not to count it. He couldn’t remember the last time he held so much in his hand. It took him another moment to ask, “Is there a thrift shop in town?”

~ ~~ 。~~ ~

They arrived back at the Victorian with three glossy new library cards, a book each for Neal and Alice, two plastic grocery bags full of secondhand clothing, and a bag of sundry necessities from the five-and-dime next to the thrift shop. Thomas intended to get the children settled in the living room to read while he put the clothes through the forty year old washing machine that made its home in the basement. Then he would go over and talk to Bea and Necie before starting dinner. It felt good to have a plan for the rest of the day.

Distracted as he was by planning and herding Neal and Alice up the front steps, it was only when he started to unlock the door that he saw the big Christmas wreath hanging on it. Fluffy with real evergreen that he could smell from where he stood, it was adorned with a cluster of pinecones and a red tartan bow, and he was quite certain it hadn’t been there when they left. 

He chanced a look over to the Weaver house. Both ladies stood at the end of their porch, smiles on their faces. It didn’t take much guesswork to know where the wreath had come from. He waved and they waved right back to him.

“Here, you go on inside,” Thomas said, opening the door and setting the bags in the entryway. “Go and start on your books. I want to know what the first page says when I come back.”

“Alice’s doesn’t have words,” Neal reasoned, but he headed toward the warm living room with Alice following at his heels.

Thomas crossed the grass between the houses quickly, shivering in the wind that sliced through. Bea and Necie welcomed him in with an open door by the time he was at the top of the steps.

“You need yourself a pair of gloves. Mittens. Something,” Necie scolded affectionately as he huffed warm breath into his hands. 

He couldn’t help smiling. “I have some, they’re just-”

“You’ll wind up with frostbite, these Maine winters,” Bea agreed. 

“I found a job today,” he said while he could get a word in edgewise. _“La Tavola.”_

Bea brightened. “Oh, that’s a lovely place!”

“Wonderful!” Necie reached up, patting his cold cheeks with both hands. “My heavens, you didn’t waste any time.”

“Just like your mother. She always was such a hard worker. Suppose she had to be, bless her.” Bea shook her head.

Necie clucked at her as though she’d said something off. “You’ll need someone to watch the children, won’t you?” she said before he could mention it, and he was grateful for being saved the asking. “We’d be more than happy to, wouldn’t we, Bea?”

“We’re home all day most days. Don’t you worry about bringing them over anytime you need a bit of babysitting.”

“For that matter, they can just drop off here after school!”

Thomas felt his stomach lurch anxiously. “School…”

“The littlest isn’t likely to be in a proper grade yet, is she?” Bea asked. “The school has a Pre-K, though.”

“I don’t know if-” he began, flustered. “School?”

“Well, they’ll have to go to school, dear,” Necie said gently. 

“Christmas vacation starts… Oh, what did it say in the paper?” Bea cast around as though it might be right at hand. “The twentieth?”

“I believe so. Keeping them out ’til it takes back in wouldn’t be terrible.” Necie winked at Thomas.

Bea clucked right back at her. “Nonsense. Don’t want them to get behind. Especially your boy, being a few years in. What is he, in second, third grade?”

“Second,” he said a little weakly. The thought of the children needing to be in school had escaped him in the chaos of the last few days. Of _course_ they had to get back to school. But they wouldn’t be here many more days, and it wouldn’t even be possible to enroll them without giving them away. His head swam.

Necie reached for his hand, patting it between hers. “The principal is the nicest girl. Just go and ask for a sit-down with her. She’ll be able to help you get it all sorted out, dear.”

Quite a loud buzzing sound rattled through the house from another room.

“Now, you wait here a minute. I have a batch of oven stew just ready to come out, and I made more than enough to send over for you and the little ones,” Bea told him with a sternly pointed finger before walking away. “It’s just right for these bitter cold nights.”

Thomas crossed the lawn again with a container of stew in his arms large enough to feed them for three meals. Each time he encountered the Weaver ladies, he felt as though he’d survived being spun out of a small and culinarily generous tornado. He tried not to worry about this new, school-shaped spanner in their situation. They had a dinner better than anything he could have put together with what he had. They had clothes that would soon be clean. They had a warm place to sleep tonight. He’d worry tomorrow.


	9. Chapter 9

She touched the doorbell, hugging the three books that Necie had requested to her chest. It was easy enough to check them out and bring them by on her way home. Belle had done it before, and the Weavers regularly did things for her without being asked. They were some of the best people she knew.

Necie answered the door with a big smile on her face. “Come in!” she said, practically dragging Belle inside. “I’ve been dying to read this trilogy. Come on into the parlor, dear.”

“I should really get home…” But Belle was drawn into the open room off to the right. 

Her halfhearted protest faded when she saw Thomas sitting next to Bea on the sofa, each holding one of the pretty floral teacups from the ladies’ collection. There was another cup and saucer on the coffee table. They’d seated him right between them. She bit her lip to sober away a laugh. He was looking at her with the softest expression on his face and she didn’t want him to think she laughed at him.

It was _La Tavola_ ’s closed day. She shouldn’t have been surprised to see him. Of course Bea and Necie were likely to have him and the kids over. The surprise she felt was a pleasant sort, though, that came along with a heavy warmth behind her breastbone. 

“Hey,” she said, and that seemed to set him into motion.

He responded with a, “Hey,” in return and seemed unable to decide between putting his cup down and standing up.

Necie extracted the books from her arms and nudged her forward another step. “Go on, go and sit. I should put these beside my reading chair before I forget.”

Belle relented easily. “I guess I can stay a little while.” 

She took the spot Necie had been sitting in, finding it closer to Thomas than she thought. She’d only seen him in passing the previous day, catching a glimpse when someone from the restaurant dropped him off at the Weavers’ to pick up his kids. He seemed fine, but she wanted to hear it right from him.

“How is work going?” she asked as he decided to set his tea on the table. 

“Well,” Thomas said with a slightly lopsided smile. “It’s going well. Storybrooke orders a lot of delivery for a small place. And I- I didn’t realize people gave such a great tips.”

“I’m sure everyone is quite grateful that their food is prompt,” Bea told him.

“Bea. _Beatrix,”_ Necie snipped from the doorway. She made an insistent beckoning gesture with the hand not holding onto books, her face full of steely exasperation.

“Pardon me,” Bea said lightly, setting her own cup down before she rose. “It seems my wife requires attention.”

Belle and Thomas’ heads turned in unison, watching as Bea crossed the room, then as the two older ladies had an exchange of words under their breath before Necie shooed her off upstairs. 

“We tend to tip generously around here when we can,” Belle continued as though they hadn’t been interrupted. She didn’t tell him that by now the entire town was likely aware how badly he needed money to fix his car. 

“Dove is a good man to work for. Good man, period,” he went on. “Thank you again for pointing me in his direction.”

“I’m only happy I could help you.” She smiled up at him, noticing how his dark eyes went a little amber in the afternoon sun coming through the parlor’s bay window. “If I can ever help with something else, just let me know.”

Thomas’ smile turned shy. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Bea told me you’re getting the kids enrolled in school? When she called about the books. She mentioned it.”

“I’m going to. Soon.” 

“I guess I just assumed you’d wait until after Christmas, since the break is so close. Bea got to you, didn’t she?” Belle asked, knowing her neighbor. “She was principal for thirty some-odd years.”

He gave a quiet laugh. “That explains so much.”

“Their old school should easily send over their files and all. I could take you over to the elementary during your lunch break tomorrow,” she offered.

“That’s all right, I-” He hesitated, his mouth trying to form words but nothing coming out. “I don’t want to be trouble.”

“It’s no trouble at all!” Belle assured him. “If you’ll call or text me when you’re ready, I can just take a break and pick you up.”

“No, it’s okay, you don’t have to-”

“I don’t mind at all.”

“No.” He pulled back in some almost imperceptible way, his smile disappearing. The openness and softness she’d seen when she walked in shut down. “I’m going to wait until after the holidays.”

She nodded. It was a fair decision, and she couldn’t blame him. “That’s… fine, too, of course.”

“I should go.” Thomas stood, walking around the other side of the coffee table to get out of the room.

After a stunned second, Belle followed him to the front door. He was already putting on his coat.

“Neal! Alice!” he called upstairs. “Time to go!”

“I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?” she asked, trying to figure out how their conversation had triggered this. “Tam? I didn’t mean-”

“No, no,” he said without looking at her as he buttoned his coat. “Nothing wrong. It’s not you.”

Belle took his red striped scarf from the coat stand. She held it up, open between her hands to help rather than give it to him. He looked at her, something startled and once more open in his expression, before ducking his head so that she could lift his scarf over. She still held the ends in her hands when he raised his head, meeting her eyes again.

“We have to go,” he said softly.

The kids came thumping down the carpeted stairs. Belle stood back while he got them into their coats and hats, watching in lingering bewilderment.


	10. Chapter 10

Belle gave him time to get home before leaving, herself, and she walked into her house still not sure what had happened. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible had happened to them. There was fear there, in Thomas and the kids, all. She wished she could help with that, wished she could make them feel safe in Storybrooke.

 _Wished._ Maybe she could help in a small way. 

Without taking off her coat, she went to the organizer filled with Christmas ornaments in her living room, where it waited for her to find the time to put up a tree. The shops in town had plenty of ornaments. She could easily have gone and chosen one off the shelf. But she wanted something meaningful. It had been near Christmas when her mother had gotten sick for the last time, and she’d given Belle something that needed to be passed on.

She sorted an ornament out of the big, compartmented storage box, and wrapped it in a couple sheets of pretty blue tissue paper. Grabbing her purse, she went right back out.

~ ~~ 。~~ ~

After the way he’d behaved earlier in the evening, Thomas didn’t expect Belle to give him the time of day any longer, much less turn up on the front step a half hour after he bolted away from her. Certainly not with the bright smile she had on her face. 

She greeted him again with a light, “Hey.”

“Come in?” he said, afterward hearing how thin the words sounded. He tried again. “Come in, it’s freezing.”

“I brought you something,” she told him as she stepped inside. “You and Neal and Alice. A present.”

He looked at the tissue-wrapped parcel that she pulled from her purse. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to.” Belle held it out to him.

Thomas waved it off. “Neal, Alice,” he called toward the living room. They were nearer by than he thought. Neal peeked immediately around the archway. “Belle’s brought you a present.”

Both children eased silently into the entryway at the prospect of a present. Neal accepted when Belle offered it to them, and he gave it right to Alice.

“Go on, open it,” he encouraged when she didn’t tear into the paper right away.

Alice looked at the grownups before she pulled open the tissue paper. She revealed an ornament - a pretty gold star, polished metal with tiny, star-shaped holes punched through all over. 

“You wish on it,” Belle said, squatting down in front of the children. “Christmas is such a special time when it comes to wishes. Did you know that? Wishes are more likely to come true this time of year.”

Holding the star in both hands, Alice scrunched her face up as though she wished _hard_ for something. She turned to Neal and held the ornament out to him. “You wish, too.”

Thomas’ jaw dropped and his son grinned up at him. He swooped her up in his arms, pressing a sound kiss to her cheek, and she squealed a little laugh. 

“I said we’d get you talking, didn’t I?” He kissed her cheek again, and she dropped her head onto his shoulder, sputtering happily.

Neal looked back down at the star. “We don’t have a tree to put it on.”

“Oh. You don’t have a tree?” Belle hummed as though it were a terrible quandary. “Maybe you could wish _very_ hard for one? Together?”

Thomas set Alice down on her feet, and she held onto one side of the star while Neal held the other. Both children screwed their faces up tight as they made their wish.

Belle stood. “Well. I have to go,” she said, but she gave Thomas an odd, twinkling look that he didn’t understand until she opened the door.

There on the porch lay a trussed up Christmas tree. Neal and Alice gasped with delight at witnessing their wish fulfilled. Thomas looked to Belle, her lips pressed together, the sidelong glance she gave him. She was clever. He had to give her that. There was no way he could turn down the tree after the children wished for it.

He took the tree in, leaning it in the corner of the living room until he could figure a way to get a stand. There would need to be a bit of furniture rearrangement, as well, to make a proper place for it. Having a Christmas tree really would be nice.

“I could stay and help decorate…” Belle offered, and there was a hopeful note to her voice that he almost thought he imagined.

“I’m not even sure there are decorations around,” he admitted. He didn’t have a clue where to start looking. They’d nosed through every room and cupboard in the house and hadn’t happened across anything like lights or ornaments.

“There must be.” She looked thoughtful. “Somewhere. Have you looked around the attic?”

After fixing Neal and Alice up with paper strips and a roll of Scotch tape from Belle’s purse, he followed her upstairs to look for the attic door. There, just past the hallway light fixture, they found a cord with a porcelain pull handle looped at its end. A ladder slid open with the trap door. He averted his eyes to the moldings around the bottom of the wall as she climbed up.

Just inside the attic, there was set up a dress form and a table with bolts of dated but once pretty fabric. A well-loved steel sewing machine built into its cabinet sat close by. Widow Peterson appeared to have been a seamstress of some advanced degree. The first box they opened held delicate dinnerware packed carefully in layers of newspaper. The second turned out to be a file of LPs, everything from classical to early rock and British Invasion stored away. Thomas remembered the old record player that sat in the corner of the master bedroom. 

There were boxes of children’s clothing, none of it larger than a small toddler’s size. Toys. Baby furniture. None of the rooms in the house were decorated for a child’s use. Thomas frowned, looking at a tatty, brown and white teddy bear and trying not to imagine reasons why that was the case. 

“Oh… this one is full of photos,” Belle said from somewhere behind him.

And, thank goodness, the next box he opened was filled with newspaper-wrapped Christmas things. “I’ve found ornaments!”

She put the lid back on the photo box and left them to help him poke through the rest of the stack of boxes underneath. They found tangled strings of lights, faux greenery and holiday knick-knacks, and the necessary tree stand he had been hoping for. It meant he wouldn’t have to take money from the repair savings to buy one.

They moved the boxes downstairs in a careful process, then to the living room, where Neal and Alice stood with their noses practically perched on the edges while they sorted through everything. When they had tree decorations separated from the rest, Thomas moved chairs away from the corner by the window, and they got the tree fixed in the stand before cutting its trusses. Belle hadn’t spared expense on it. The limbs fluffed heavily out when they were freed. Neal and Alice gazed up at it in wonder.

Thomas set about untangling the light strings. He caught himself pausing over and over to watch Belle. As she unwrapped ornaments and set them aside in the crinkled paper so that they could see what there was. As she draped time-dulled golden garland around the children, making them giggle and twirl to see it move. As she went on with an almost non-stop happy chatter that made the house feel warm in a way that the fire and furnace couldn’t. Thomas told himself that the pressure gathered behind his ribs was appreciation for her generosity, for the way she showed endless kindness to the children, but even he couldn’t wholly believe that was all it was.

Dinnertime had gotten quite past when they neared being finished with the tree, Neal hanging the wishing star that Belle had given them as high as he could reach. Thomas turned the lamps off and they stood back to simply admire their work. The old fashioned little golden-white lights glowed, glinting off ornaments, illuminating the small space around the tree, and he had such an unsettling moment of deja vu. 

The feeling was too strange. His father had never gotten them a Christmas tree. He’d never bought a tree, himself, until Neal came along, and even then theirs had never looked anything as nice as this.

“Who wants to put the topper on?” Belle asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Neal nudged Alice a step forward, and she smiled, ducking her head. Thomas picked her up. “Do you want to put it on?”

Looking at the big star, its points sticking out of a faceted center meant to shine light out from the bulb inside, she gave a quick little nod. Belle gave the star to her, and Alice held it out as he lifted her higher. He fixed the angle of it a bit before Belle reached through the branches to plug it into the lights. There was a flicker, but the bulb held, and the star shone in streams of gold-tinged rainbow.

“I can repay you,” Thomas said quietly as they went back to admiring the now complete tree.

She reached for his hand and he let her take it. “It’s a gift, silly. You don’t repay for a gift.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Made any headway with your internet?” Belle asked as she stepped into the sheriff’s office bullpen.

“They’re sending a technician,” Lance grumbled. “Next week. Seems this time of year is exceptionally busy.”

Mulan finished a call and hung up. “Meanwhile, my Words With Friends partners are probably wondering when I’ll return from the war,” she said, grabbing the book from the corner of her desk. “Thanks for running it over. Couldn’t get through a slow shift without the next one.”

Grinning, Belle exchanged books with her. “The internet is just fine across the rest of town.”

“Yeah, but I only get to play games at work. The kids take up all our spare time after I get home.” Mulan flipped through to the first page and stuck her bookmark - a freebie from the mayor’s last campaign - in place there.

“It’s not going to be down forever,” Lance muttered.

Belle needled him playfully, pitching her voice with absolute innocence. “Have you tried turning it off and back on again?”

“I’ll turn you off and back on again,” he snarked, looking askance at her.

With a snort, Mulan let her book slap back into place on the desk. “I have doubts about the ‘on’ part.”

“I don’t have enough feeling words to explain how tired I am of that question.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, leaning forward a bit dramatically.

“Lance.” Belle slid the step across to him. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Lance, you may need to cycle your modem.”

He laid his head on the desk. His shoulders shook with a pretended sob.

“You could always go back to sending telegrams,” she said, patting his back. “Or, ooh, Morse code!”

“Yeah, yeah, and you could go back to your new boyfriend.” Lance lifted his head to smirk knowingly at her.

Belle spluttered before she could put together a retort. “See how long it takes me to make that order for _Akata Witch_ for you now.”

“Kids,” Graham scolded from his office, “the cells are empty. Don’t make me use them.”

She eyed Lance for a moment before reaching to tip over his pencil cup. “You’re lucky I have lunch on the way.”

“Petty! I could arrest you,” he threatened.

“Say hi to Rory and Philip and kiss on the babies for me!” Belle called back to Mulan before heading out.

She tucked her hands into her coat pockets, smiling to herself on her way across the street. The sheriff’s station was usually a fun few minutes when she dropped by. It was always great to see Mulan, and Lance was quick with a bit of banter. Graham made sure the station was a welcoming place - for people who weren’t criminals, at least.

The library had about the average traffic for noon in the middle of the week. There were a couple of kids back in the children’s section, a few adults milling around the stacks. All of the overnight returns had been scanned in and reshelved, and she’d taken a walk through to straighten the shelves up before pulling Mulan’s book to take over. She and Ariel had nothing to do until a shipment of new materials came in later in the afternoon. Belle perched on her stool in front of the computer and waited for lunch to arrive.

Her heart thumped a funny extra beat when Thomas walked in carrying the gray paper bag with a white swoop across the side from _La Tavola._ His eyes went right to her. The smile that bloomed across his face when he saw her was some combination of happiness and relief, and it was just beautiful.

“I had a feeling we’d end up with lunch from Dove’s again,” Ariel said from behind her with no small amount of amusement.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Belle replied over her shoulder. “We order out lunch all the time.”

“Mmhm, and before Thomas took that job, when was the last time you ordered Italian for lunch? Oh, that’s right. Never.” Ariel grinned at her.

Belle gave her a second’s worth of a stare, then murmured, “Shoo before I make you inventory the periodicals.”

With a giggle, her friend disappeared into the office. “You just tell me when I can come out for my food,” Ariel said, winking at her before closing the door. 

“Baked ziti, chicken pesto sandwich, iced tea, and a lemonade?” Thomas asked, setting the bag on the counter. 

“That’s our order,” she confirmed. “Thanks.”

Belle set the bag down behind the desk and took twenty dollars from the petty cash box under the counter, plus ten. She slipped a twenty out of her own pocket inside the ten.

“This is for the food,” she said as she gave him the first twenty, and when she handed him the rest folded smaller, “This is yours.”

“Belle, you don’t have to-”

“Don’t argue about tips, Tam. It’s… bad luck. Or something.”

He laughed, but he took it. Thomas’ laughter made her heart thump again. He was such a good man. It was honest to goodness rare, how sweet he was, how unassuming. And, truthfully, it didn’t hurt that he was that striking and sharp sort of handsome, too. She couldn’t turn a corner without thinking about him since he’d arrived in town, a circumstance which only seemed to grow more intense every time she crossed paths with him. It might’ve been disconcerting if she didn’t enjoy it so much.

“I have to get back to work,” he said reluctantly. “I have a half dozen more bags in the delivery truck, and there’ll be more by the time I finish those.”

Despite wanting to find something to say to keep him there longer, she nodded. An impulsive thought had her lean across the desk. She beckoned him toward her. He leaned his arms on the countertop as though he thought she meant to whisper something. Pushing herself forward just a little more, she pressed a kiss to his cheek.

The color in his face changed visibly before he leaned back again, his cheeks going pink. Thomas’ smile looked as if it couldn’t decide whether it was a surprised or a shy one, his eyes going wide in a way that reminded her of how Neal had looked up at the Christmas tree.

“See you later,” she said, and he seemed to have a false start before he could actually turn to leave the library.

Belle watched as he went, wishing his coat weren’t quite so long. All she was left with was the impression that he smelled nice today. She bit the inside of her cheek and entertained thoughts of what it might be like to kiss him properly.


	12. Chapter 12

Dove had taken to sending what he called ‘leftovers’ with Thomas after shift. The kitchen staff thought they were being sneaky, but the food was always freshly cooked when it was packed up for him, and he was well aware which things were only prepared to order. Still, he was grateful. It was an enormous weight off his shoulders, not having to worry where their next meal would come from

The children would be overjoyed with dinner tonight. He’d been sent off with a covered plate of breaded chicken breasts ostensibly meant for chicken parm, a pan’s worth of manicotti, mozzarella sticks, and a full loaf of garlic bread that only needed a quick toast. Chicken, bread, cheese - they would be in heaven. The sous chef, Frederick, dropped him off in front of the Weaver house to fetch them.

“Stay on the grass, Neal. That’s Miss Bea’s flower bed. Alice, love, leave the ice alone. There’s a tree attached to that,” he cautioned when she reached for a thin redbud branch as they passed it. 

He veered out of reach when her small hand still grasped in its direction, not wanting either of them to get slapped with a rebounding branch. They reached the edge of the Victorian’s lawn before he saw Belle. She stood on the porch, illuminated by the streetlamps and the fixture next to the door, wrapping a string of Christmas lights around a post. It seemed as though she’d been at it for a while, judging by the condition of the banister and railings. Thomas was almost embarrassingly thrilled to see her there. Also a little confused, because for some reason she was decorating the house.

_“Hi, Belle!”_ Neal yelled out.

“Hi there!” Belle leaned over the porch rail. “Oh, it’s later than I thought, isn’t it?”

“What in heaven’s name are you doing?” Thomas asked.

“Um. Well.” She looked up at the half-wrapped post, still holding the middle of the light string. “I was helping Bea and Necie put their outside lights up. You know, to keep either of them from climbing a ladder? There were some lights left over, and they said I should just put them up here, since you haven’t had time to decorate…”

He blinked up at her from the bottom of the steps, not quite sure how to react. The lights would be nice, of course, but she had been climbing around alone putting them up, and the thought was disconcerting. 

“I should have asked,” she said when his silence went on for a beat too long.

“Sorry, I-” He shook his head, taking Neal and Alice up the steps. “It’s okay. Let me help?”

Belle’s hesitant expression turned into a smile. “I wouldn’t say no.”

Setting the bag of food down so that Neal and Alice couldn’t get a head start on dinner, he ushered them inside. The food would have to be reheated anyway.

“Stay in the living room. You still have your books, and you have crayons and coloring books, now. You can sit and read or color, but stay there,” he told them. Before he had the door shut, both children were watching out the living room window.

She’d gotten a good two-thirds of the lights done by herself. The rest went up quickly with the two of them, and too soon they had the last wrapped around the lone lefthand post. Belle handed him one of the little brackets to secure the end of the string, bumping her hip against his when he stood after pushing it into place. 

“You mentioned the other day how Neal is getting so good with his drawing. I was thinking, after Christmas, maybe I should look into a grant for an art class through the library. Do you think he’d enjoy that?” she asked.

Thomas went quiet, far more distracted by connecting the last two strings in than the task warranted. He plugged the free end into the outlet near the door. The porch lit up, and they stood for a moment simply admiring the results of their work in the dark. 

“Why do you pull away like that?” Belle turned to face him, and he felt the spark of her concentrating full attention on him. “What are you frightened of?”

“Nothing,” he said too quickly, and even he could hear the lie of it.

Her eyes searched his face for so long that his skin began to prickle with warmth. “Don’t say it’s ‘nothing’. Something’s happened to you and the kids. I can see it. If it’s none of my business, then tell me it’s none of my business. But I’d like to help, Tam, if I can.”

He was tempted to try and explain. For a moment, he could almost hope that she might understand. That, as kind and smart as she was, she might be able to see something that he didn’t.

Reality jabbed at him, though. There was no way she could help them. He was headed for deeper trouble than she could possibly want to get involved in. Everything she thought he was, right down to his name, was a lie. 

“You’re thinking so loudly,” she said when he didn’t respond. “What about?”

It was with an almost pleading in his voice that he told her, “I can’t.”

The look she gave him was one of concern. Then something about it cleared into resolve. She went up on her tiptoes, taking hold of his coat lapels, and pulled him in to meet her lips. A second of surprise froze Thomas before the instinct to close his eyes followed. He lifted his hands to cradle them along the soft line of her jaw, glad in that moment that he didn’t have his gloves so he could feel her. And God, he’d never had a kiss that felt so right, or that he wanted so badly to continue. It felt as though he were coming to life under her touch. 

Her teeth grazed his lower lip. She pulled back, staying close enough that her warm breath puffed across his face in the freezing cold. 

“I keep thinking about you,” she whispered. “I think about you all the time.”

“Belle, you don’t know-”

“I know how I feel. And I know you’re a good person, and a good father.” She held tight to his coat as though he were going to get away.

“We have to leave. After Christmas, we have to leave,” he told her. It wasn’t fair to keep it from her, that they weren’t staying as she clearly expected they were going to. He owed her at least that much honesty.

Her eyes fluttered open. “What? Why?”

“I know what you mean, about the- the thinking. Because I can’t stop thinking about you,” he confessed, and it was like dragging himself through broken glass to say it. His jaw clenched against the wider truth. 

He hadn’t expected this. He didn’t want this kind of complication, to feel as if he were leaving behind a part of himself. He’d only known her for a week, and common sense told him that feeling that way was ridiculous. But there he was, hurting at the thought of leaving her, and she was looking at him like- like-

Like she loved him.

“Please don’t make it more difficult,” he heard himself saying.

Belle looked as though she were going to cry, and oh, that hurt even more.

“Okay,” she breathed, but she didn’t let go of him. “Okay. You have to leave. I don’t understand, but I hear you. What if… What if you give me the time between now and then? Two weeks? Will you give me those two weeks?”

The color in her cheeks was high, her eyes glistening with unshed tears, and how could he _not,_ with her looking at him that way?

“Two weeks,” he echoed. He felt himself giving in. He was an idiot. It was going to hurt so much more, effectively tearing himself open for her, but he leapt at the temptation. “Until we leave.”

Belle smiled broad and bright, and the change in her expression made the tears fall over her cheeks anyway. “You never know. Maybe something will happen to change your mind.”

“It isn’t a matter of changing my mind,” he said gently.

“If you still have to leave, then at least we’ll have had those two weeks,” she reasoned, and her hands tightened further on his coat. “It’s better than never knowing you at all.”

He leaned in until his forehead rested against hers. Shielded behind his ribs, Thomas’ heart hurt. He’d never had a home that _felt_ like home in the way this entire town did. Two weeks. He could pretend that he belonged there - pretend that he belonged with _her_ \- for that long.


	13. Chapter 13

Every day had Belle in it. Far more now than a glance across the street or a wave if they happened to see one another when he got off work. There was _time_ made to be together, and if there was a current of urgency running beneath, they both ignored it. 

Thomas discovered that, for a small town, Storybrooke boasted a busy schedule of holiday events, and it seemed Belle was intent on them experiencing every one. She put he and the children in her car one evening and treated them to the gingerbread ‘museum’ at Granny’s. There were numerous pretty little houses made in the previous afternoon’s contest, and a castle made as tall and spindly as one could make baked goods, but Belle was tickled pink by the gingerbread clocktower and library that Ariel put together.

On his day off, he took Neal and Alice to attend another storytime. _The Polar Express,_ this time read by the town’s catch-all psychologist, who had apparently been talked into a fairly impressive elf costume. Judging by Belle’s satisfied grin, he had a suspicion he knew just who did the convincing. Some rumor must have sprung up among the group of children, because after the story, Dr. Hopper was mobbed with questions regarding Santa and the North Pole and whether their letters and e-mails had been received. The doctor fielded them bravely.

The four of them walked through town on the evening that the business Christmas decorations were judged. Neal and Alice were enthralled by the lights. Thomas was enthralled by Belle. She looped her arm through his, leaning into him as they wandered up and down the sidewalks with a group of people interested in the judges’ deliberations. The town hall narrowly won first place, with its Christmas apple wreaths and glittered pine cone trees covered in red lights, but the library won second. 

Belle, in her excitement, kissed him in the middle of the small crowd. He’d never been kissed in public before - no one had ever been moved to a public display of affection for him. Thomas was unprepared for how good it felt.

It was the same evening that they happened across Dove on the way back to the car. They ended up asked to the restaurant to have dinner on the house, only to discover a table set with candles as well as coloring page placemats. 

“A date,” Dove told them with a smile entirely too smug for how small it was. “A more or less proper date. Sit down and enjoy yourselves.”

The only people in the front of the restaurant, they laughed and talked without reservation. There was no one to bother or stay quiet for. Keeping carefully away from only the subject of leaving, they talked over Dove’s gnocchi napolitano and discovered one another’s opinions on books and movies, places, food, life. Neal chimed in through mouthfuls of chicken, and Alice declared her love for her bunny throughout, fully understanding the basic line of the conversation. There was more happiness held in that single meal than Thomas could remember having in years.

He couldn’t even summon up surprise when Belle described Storybrooke’s Christmas festival to him. Apparently it was second only to the Miner’s Day festival, which he made a mental note to ask about sometime, because there had to be a story _there._ Belle picked up Neal and Alice, and she met him at _La Tavola_ after his shift so that they could walk over together. 

Nothing could have prepared him. The festival was built around a small lake, frozen and perfect for skating. Trees, bushes, stalls, walkways - all had been covered with lights. More lights were strung between tall, thin stakes to encircle the entirety of the festival and lake. There were Christmas trees, fantastic lawn decorations, glittering ornaments hanging from everything that stood still long enough to hang them on. Stalls sold food and crafts and offered games to play for prizes. Thomas knew that places like Storybrooke existed, but spending Christmas somewhere that celebrated it as a community was _surreal._

Belle bought snacks, sharing when she claimed they were ‘too much’ to eat on her own. They played silly, simple games to win prizes for the children, window shopped the beautiful arts and crafts that they couldn’t afford, watched a bit of the set-up as the sheriff and deputies arranged fireworks for later in the evening. People greeted him as though he’d always lived there. 

They caught one of the benches near the lake empty and sat for a while, watching the ice skaters. Neal looked at them with absolute envy until Belle got his attention.

“Neal?” she asked. “Would you like to learn to skate?”

He lit up as though she’d offered to give him a toy store. Neal looked to his father. “Can I?”

“Have fun,” Thomas told him.

“You could join us,” Belle offered, resting her hand on Thomas’ knee when she sat forward.

“I don’t believe so.” The warmth of her palm went right through his jeans. But he had Alice tucked close to his chest, and he didn’t relish the idea of falling all over the ice in front of most of the town, anyway. “I’m a little old to learn now.”

The look she gave him told him that she thought that was nonsense, but she patted his leg, leaning on him as she stood. “Come on, Neal. I’ll show you.”

Neal took her hand when she offered it. They walked down to borrow skates, sorting through the donated stash that sat in apple boxes at the lake’s edge. She helped him on with them, helped him onto the ice, and guided him patiently to the tune of “Papa, look!” every few moments as Thomas looked on. His son could skate in a more or less straight line on purpose _and_ stop by the time they needed to warm up a bit.

Returning the skates to an apple box, they sought out space around the fire pits off to one end of the stalls. Bea and Necie had arrived and installed themselves on a concrete bench near one of the crackling fires, and Necie gestured them insistently over. She bumped Bea, making her scoot down enough for another pair of people to share the seat.

“I’m learning to skate! Belle’s teaching me!” Neal announced proudly to their temporary neighbors. 

“Is she?” Necie asked, matching his enthusiasm. “And is Belle a good teacher?”

Neal nodded. “So good,” he assured her. “She showed me how to land if I fall so I don’t get hurt.”

“That’s very important,” Necie agreed.

“We weren’t going to get out in the cold this late, but you made it sound far too nice to miss.” Bea pushed her heavy scarf higher around her neck. “I suppose we’ll stay for the fireworks. We’ve lasted this long.”

Necie looked to Thomas and Belle with a knowing grin. “Are the rest of you having as wonderful a time as Neal is?” 

Thomas exchanged a smile with Belle. “We are. All of us.”

“Have you seen the carriage?” Bea hinted, looking back toward the large oak that grew near the path. An open carriage drawn by a gray Shire waited there. “It seems to be open just now.”

“We’d be happy to watch these two, if you happened to want to go for a little carriage ride.” Necie’s grin broadened.

Belle smiled, slipping her arm through his again when he turned to her. “I wouldn’t mind a carriage ride.”


	14. Chapter 14

“Have I told you about the Christmas pageant?” Belle asked after dinner. She’d happily come over to help them eat the spaghetti and mozzarella-stuffed meatballs Dove sent with him before they planned to join her in going caroling. “I haven’t, have I?”

He finished refilling Alice’s sippy cup at the counter and took it back to the table. “You haven’t.”

“We have it at the town hall, on the twenty-third. It’s a Nativity play. The woman who directs it is a friend,” she explained. “Mal Drake? I don’t know if you’ve crossed paths with her yet?”

“Not that I know of.”

“There are always enough roles to go around. I could get Neal and Alice parts, if you’re all okay with it.”

Thomas looked to the children, finding them turned to him in hopeful excitement. “Suppose it wouldn’t hurt, if you could.”

“I’ll get you some good parts,” Belle told them with a little wink.

He smiled at the ease she had, getting along with them, before adding, “And if you’ll put your plates in the sink, we can get going, because it’s _almost_ time for caroling.”

Neal and Alice needed no more encouragement than that. They hopped down from their chairs, taking their plates with them. Neal took Alice’s at the sink and stood on his tiptoes to put them in. 

“Coats, hats, mittens,” Thomas said, and they ran off to fetch their outdoor things, shoes thumping on the stairs as they went up.

It was ridiculously cold out, but Granny met the group of carolers with to-go cups of hot cocoa when they gathered at her house a couple of blocks down to begin their circuit of the neighborhood. Belle held onto Thomas’ arm that wasn’t busy supporting Alice. While they waited for everyone to get their ducks in a row, as far as songs and which direction they’d start in went, she filled him in on the people he hadn’t met.

“That’s David and Mary Margaret Nolan, and their daughter, Emma. They live down in New York, but they come up for Christmas and a couple of weeks in the summer,” Belle told him quietly. “The lady in the really nicely tailored coat? That’s Regina. She’s Mary Margaret’s stepmother. Also the mayor.”

“Mayor?” Thomas whispered back.

“Yep. She used be very… mm… well. Not terribly personable. But she’s softened up a lot since Emma was born.” Belle grinned at him before subtly pointing out a tall blonde woman. She held a toddler with a fluff of black hair coming out from beneath a knit purple hat. “That’s Mal, and that’s her daughter, Lily.”

At first glance, Mal didn’t look like someone who would direct a children’s play. It wasn’t until she giggled with her daughter over the big pom-poms at the ends of the little girl’s hat strings that he saw that sort of kindness in her.

Belle nudged him and pointed toward the front of the group. “Over there, that’s my friend, Mulan. And that’s my friend Lance. They both work at the sheriff’s office. I’ll introduce you to them and their families later.”

She went on, giving him a short rundown of each person there before they gathered into a somewhat more cohesive group and headed for the next house along. It felt to Thomas as though they sang every Christmas carol there was. Neal and Alice had a blast, and he enjoyed himself, too, of course. His enjoyment came from being there with the children and Belle. Particularly since he didn’t know half of the songs they sang. He did his best to mouth the words, and by the amused looks that Belle occasionally sent his way, she fully realized it. Neal sang his heart out whether he knew the words or not.

The trip around the houses took a while. It was worth bearing the cold to see the happiness in people’s faces when they came out to see, though, and they gained a few more carolers as they went along. Bea and Necie joined in when they made it back around that end of the neighborhood. When the last house had been treated to _I Saw Three Ships_ and _O Holy Night,_ the group drifted back to their respective cars and houses.

The Weaver ladies joined Thomas and Belle on the walk back toward the Victorian, chatting between themselves about the decorations on the houses that they passed. Reaching the end of the drive, they stopped to admire the Peterson house. Belle had helped him to bring the outdoor decorations down from the attic and put them up over the last few evenings. It was in fine form.

“Oh, it looks so much like it did when we were young,” Necie said, growing teary. “Well, young _er.”_

“The Petersons did such lovely Christmas decorations back then,” Bea agreed.

Thomas held Neal’s hand in his, carrying Alice on the opposite hip. Standing next to him, Belle snugged close, her arm around him while they took a moment to look up at the results of their efforts. His chest ached with the need to stay like this. Just like this. The children, Belle, and somehow turning the feeling of pretending to belong there into actually belonging.

Alice tugged at the shoulder of his coat, leaning to say in a four-year-old’s approximation of a whisper, “It’s happy here.”

“It is, isn’t it?” He smiled at her, finding Belle smiling at them both. Another pang went through him at the idea of having to leave. Days were flying by too quickly.

Belle tilted her head back, and he couldn’t deny her the kiss she asked for. He didn’t miss the way Necie elbowed Bea in the side, either. 

“We should be going in,” Bea said when he’d pulled back from the brief kiss. She didn’t even try to hide the fact that she’d been observing them. “It’ll be bedtime soon enough.”

Necie gave her a mildly surprised glance. “Hm? Oh. _Oh._ Yes, yes, and I have to watch my recorded shows. It just feels like my day is incomplete without them.” She patted Belle on the shoulder. “You enjoy the rest of your evening.”

The Weavers, holding onto one another as they crossed the perilous dark of the snowy lawn, returned to their house. It was too cold to dawdle any longer. Thomas needed to get the children in where it was warm.

“Come back in for coffee?” he asked Belle.

She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t drink coffee this late. I wouldn’t mind another piece of that cannoli cake, though.”

“You can have all you like,” he said as they made their way up the steps. “The kids will be trying to convince me it’s breakfast in the morning, if it’s still there.”

“Well, I can’t eat it _all!”_ Belle laughed. 

She pulled her scarf and hat off, hanging them from the coat rack while he liberated Neal and Alice from their own outdoor things. The children went immediately to the living room to warm themselves near the fireplace. Thomas followed, and Belle excused herself to the kitchen. She joined him on the sofa with her seconds of cake. It was impossible not to watch as she ate it, with the sounds and facial expressions of pleasure she made at each bite. 

When her piece of cake was gone, Belle leaned against him on the sofa, her arm draped across his leg to run her nails gently back and forth over his jeans at the inside of his knee. He felt the ends of her hair brush over his wrist where he had his arm around her. She rested her head on his shoulder, and he opened his hand to let her hair slide between his fingers. 

Belle got Neal and Alice involved in a game of I Spy that somehow managed to last until the children were too sleepy to guess any longer. They did their best, attention slipping and heads drooping, and it seemed bedtime came early.

“I spy something with pillows and blankets,” Thomas said, reluctantly sitting up and away from Belle. Both children groaned in protest, but they were too tired for their hearts to be in it.

“Here, let me help?” Belle offered. 

She got up, holding her hands out to Alice as he was encouraging Neal out from the quilts still in front of the hearth. Alice raised her arms to be picked up. He couldn’t help being a little surprised at how readily Alice allowed someone else to take her. When was the last time she’d been around someone who wasn’t him, Milah, or Killian, though? And he was the only one who was in a habit of holding her.

They could forego brushing their teeth for a single night, he decided as he tucked Neal in. It wasn’t worth waking them up now.

“Need Percy,” Alice murmured when he got her tucked into the other side of the bed, fighting to keep her eyes open. Belle handed him the bunny so he could give it to her.

“Your lovey is right here,” Thomas said, and Alice hugged the stuffed toy to her, surrendering to sleep. Where she’d heard the name ‘Percy,’ he’d never been able to figure. 

He pressed a kiss to Alice’s forehead, then leaned across to kiss Neal’s cheek before moving carefully off the edge of the bed. They left the room as silently as possible. He pulled the door shut with the knob turned so that it wouldn’t click. Just because the children were worn out didn’t mean they wouldn’t pop wide awake at the wrong sound.

“Which bedroom is yours?” Belle asked when they were safely out.

He gestured to door right behind her. “Just across. I wanted to be as near the kids as possible.”

Reaching for his hand, she gave him a gentle tug toward the other side of the hallway. “Would it be all right if you _showed_ me which is yours?”

“Showed… You want to…?” He felt his face go warm. Other parts, too. It had been a long time. A _long_ time. 

“We could. I want to,” she said with a smile, drawing him another step along. “If you want to.”

He glanced back toward the children’s room. 

“We’ll be quiet,” Belle promised. 

Thomas stepped closer on his own. “I wouldn’t mind something sweet again, either,” he said, cringing inwardly as it came out of his mouth.

It was when she laughed and still pushed open the bedroom door that he was absolutely certain he’d made the right choice.


	15. Chapter 15

The mechanic’s garage was wide open when Thomas passed by on his way back from a round of lunch deliveries. His car sat inside, hood propped open, a large wooden work table dragged up close with parts spread out on it while Gus worked. He turned, pulling around near the garage.

“How does it look?” he asked when the young mechanic glanced up.

Gus came over, wiping his hands on an oily rag hanging from his coveralls pocket. He sighed and leaned on the delivery truck window sill. “Around Christmas, give or take a day or two. Depends on business, more than anything.”

Nodding, Thomas rubbed his hands against his thighs. “I’ll have the money for you in time.”

“I’m not worried,” Gus told him with a casual smile.

Thomas fretted as he pulled away from the shop, though. What would he do if the car wasn’t ready? Or if he _couldn’t_ have all of the money together in time? There was neither bus nor cab company in town. He’d begun trying to concoct plans for just taking his car from the garage and sending the money back later, when his mind rebelled against thoughts of leaving entirely.

The memories that had been floating through his head all morning pushed back to the forefront. He could still see the way Belle looked after they’d made love. Drifting near sleep next to him, the dark waves of her hair spread wild across the pillow. He remembered her hand curled over the side of his neck, her fingertips stroking drowsily over the hair at the nape, her leg thrown across his hip beneath the covers. He’d remained awake for as long as he could, watching her in disbelief. When he woke this morning, she had snuggled close in the night. Thomas’ day began with her warm and soft in his arms.

It would hurt so much more, walking away from her after last night. It hurt already. He wanted to stay there with her forever. He wanted all of them to stay. 

Some quote from one of the children’s books leapt to mind. Something about believing so many impossible things before breakfast, and he felt silly. His impossible things were quickly stacking up.

~ ~~ 。~~ ~

“Hi, Belle!” a familiar little voice said, and Belle looked up to find Neal and Alice just inside the door of her library. 

She grinned at the pair of them running up to her front desk. “Well, hi there!”

“We’re here for storytime again!” Neal announced. He put the books he and Alice previously checked out up on the counter. “And books. Can we get more books, too?”

She slid the books over, scanning them back in. “Of course you can get more! That’s what they’re here for.”

Bea and Necie walked in, unwrapping their scarves. “We thought we’d bring the little ones around for storytime,” Bea said as she stuffed most of the middle of her scarf into her coat pocket. “Maybe get some books, ourselves, instead of bothering you to deliver them, for once.”

“I was just about to go in.” Belle took the kids’ hats and mittens and scarves when they shed them, putting them behind the counter for safekeeping before handing the front desk off to Ariel.

“Who’s reading?” Neal asked eagerly, reaching up to take her hand.

At her other side, Alice did the same. Belle felt as though her heart grew a size. “You know, I’m not sure who Santa sent to us today. We’ll see when we go in, hmm?”

Both kids drew a gasp when they walked into the children’s section, but it was Alice who whispered in wonder, “Mrs. Santa?”

It had taken some convincing, but Ursula Olagarro, who co-owned the day spa, had agreed to make an appearance as Mrs. Claus for a storytime day. She wore a Christmas-red dress, a white lace mob cap and apron, and small spectacles perched on her nose. Her costume was darling. The wig was the sort that could only convince children, however.

Belle took Neal and Alice down to the front row while kids were still coming in. They sat quietly - all of the kids did - and waited. She took a spot near the back with the rest of the adults who stayed to listen.

Mrs. Claus had chosen to read _The Story of Holly and Ivy_ to the group. It was a little longer than the children who came in for storytime were accustomed to. Belle expected some to grow squirmy, but they paid rapt attention, and she watched as soft choruses of gasps and sounds of sympathy and anticipation rose and fell with the story.

Where the kids had accosted Dr. Hopper the elf, they appeared to be in a virtually quiet awe of Mrs. Claus. Rather than the flood of questions, they asked for hugs, and Ursula, to her credit, seemed happy to give them. One little boy asked shyly if she knew whether he was on the good or naughty list, and a round of the same went through a couple more kids before Ursula assured them that every child there had been deemed good by Santa. The children were practically glowing by the time she had to leave.

Belle met Neal and Alice with a smile as big as their own when they came back to her. Alice just bopped around happily, her hair flouncing with her dance, but Neal recounted every moment of storytime as though Belle hadn’t been watching it all. By the time he ran out of excited chatter about Mrs. Claus, most of the other kids had left with their parents. 

“Why don’t we find you some books to take home?” Belle suggested. 

She needed to get back to work, but then, helping patrons find something to read _was_ a part of her job. She could take the time for that much. And if she got to spend a few extra minutes with them, well, that was a delightful bonus.

Neal was content to look for a book on his own. He wandered a little ways along the short children’s shelves while Belle squatted down with Alice to help her find something with colorful pictures and large print. After a few moments, Neal returned to her side with _If a T-Rex Crashes Your Birthday Party._

“Papa’s birthday is in three days,” he said thoughtfully.

“Oh,” she replied. That was interesting. The plotty part of her brain kicked in. “On the twenty-first?”

Neal nodded quickly. “I don’t know how old he’ll be, but we don’t have candles on his birthday, anyway.”

The way he said it didn’t sound as though he felt that was quite right. “You don’t?”

“Papa says it’s not important. But we always have cake and candles on our birthdays.” He shrugged.

“Do you think he would _want_ to have cake and candles?” Belle asked.

Neal shrugged again, looking at the cover of the book. “He doesn’t answer right if I ask.”

She took a second to try and puzzle that out before attempting to get some clarification. “How do you mean?”

“Papa says it’s not possible, so it doesn’t matter about wanting it.” He turned back to the spot where he found the birthday book to put it away and search for another. 

“Anything is possible.” Belle reached out to run a hand over his hair. When he looked up at her with a smile, she told him, “That’s something you and Alice should know. And your papa, too. Anything is possible.”

~ ~~ 。~~ ~

Neal sat on the sofa with his new library book open on his lap. It was bigger than the first he checked out, and it would take longer to read. He hoped he would have time to finish it. He turned to find Alice still next to the Christmas tree, still looking up at the wishing star that Belle had given them. 

They were waiting for Papa to get dinner ready and for Belle to come back from her house so they could all eat together. Dishes and forks clanked in the kitchen, and he could hear Papa humming. He liked it when Belle had dinner with them. Papa smiled more when she was around.

Neal closed his book and slid down from the sofa, going to the tree. “Let’s make another wish,” he said, and Alice nodded. Being very, _very_ careful, he took the star ornament down so they could both hold it the way they had when they wished for a Christmas tree. “What do you want to wish for?”

“Wanna stay,” Alice told him firmly.

“Yeah. That’s what I’m gonna do, too.” He held the star out so she could put her hands on it. “Wish real hard, okay?”

She nodded again and squeezed her eyes shut. Neal did the same, yelling the wish out in his thoughts so it would go everywhere. Whoever granted star wishes had to hear them.


	16. Chapter 16

Who needed a doorbell when he had Neal to scream, “Belle’s back!” through the house?

“So, what’s Dove sent home with you today?” Belle came into the kitchen with Alice on her hip and Neal at her heels. 

She rounded the counter to nudge in against his side, leaning her head back in a gesture that he already understood. Thomas greeted her with the requested kiss before answering.

“Lasagna,” he said, pointing to one foil-covered pan, then to a smaller one. “And stuffed flounder. I thought we might eat in the dining room.”

“Fancy,” she declared as she took the stack of plates he’d set out with her free hand. 

She came back for the glasses without Alice attached just as he handed Neal a handful paper towels and silverware to take to the table. “Go on and sit down. The food is right out of the oven, I’ll get it with hot pads.”

Alice claimed the dining chair at the head of the table, swinging her feet underneath when he brought the food in. Neal and Belle had arranged themselves across from one another, and there’d been a seat saved for him at the corner next to Belle. He appreciated the seating choices.

“Noodles!” Alice crowed appreciatively when he took the foil off the top. 

“Noodles,” Thomas repeated with a grin. “Good thing we like noodles, right?”

She beamed up at him, wiggling in the chair as he served her plate. “We like noodles _a lot.”_

No one could accuse any of them of being shy around food. The first round of servings put a good dent in both pans, and everyone dug in with gusto.

“I hear you met someone interesting at the library today?” Thomas said once everyone began working on their dinner. 

Neal and Alice lit up. His son set in on describing the entire counter in between bites of lasagna, from the second he set eyes on Mrs. Claus to the hugs she gave them at the end of storytime. By the time Neal was done, Thomas knew precisely what Mrs. Claus looked like, and he’d heard the story she read to the children, as well. It sounded like they’d had a wonderful day.

“And after Christmas, when everybody goes back to school, this girl Wendy said they’re gonna start getting ready for the _science fair,”_ Neal went on, excitement clear in his face. “I could do mine about reptiles. Or something about space!”

Thomas did his best not to frown. His son wasn’t doing anything wrong. Neal was just… hoping.

“We’re leaving right after Christmas,” he reminded as gently as he could. “You know that, love.”

Neal went quiet. He poked at what was left of his dinner, managing a few seconds before his lower lip began to wobble. With a stifled sound of distress, he got down from his chair and ran from the dining room. The front door opened and slammed shut again.

With a sigh, Thomas pushed back his own chair and got up.

Belle stood with him. “Do you want me to help?”

“No, I-” He hesitated, but finally shook his head. “No. I’ll talk to him. Look after Alice?” 

She stepped over near Alice, who had turned around in her chair and sat up on her knees to peer over the back of it toward the entryway. Belle rested a hand on the little girl’s back, patting her.

Thomas worried where Neal had run off to, but he found his son as soon as he opened the door, sitting right outside on the top step. He sat so that he could press his forehead against the lone post to one side. Thomas went down a couple of steps and sat next to him.

It hurt to hear his son cry. Particularly when it was his fault. Before he could open his mouth to apologize, Neal turned, leaning against him.

“Please don’t make us go?” his son pled between sobs.

Thomas wrapped an arm around him. “Neal…” 

Neal rubbed at his face, making his cheeks splotchy red. “Papa, it’s nice here! People are nice! Nobody’s mean or looks at us funny, nobody says we’re gross because of where we live. _Please?”_

“We can’t stay here,” Thomas told him once again. “I wish we could, too, but-”

“Just keep pretending you’re that lady’s son!”

“It doesn’t work like that. The kind of mistake people are making about who I am, it doesn’t go forever without coming out.”

“Marry Belle,” Neal said, as though it were as easy as saying it. “We could be a family together.”

He kissed the top of his son’s head. “That’s not possible.”

Neal rubbed his nose against the front of his father’s shirt before looking up at him. “Belle says anything is possible.”

Thomas didn’t know how to respond to that. He refused to crush his son’s hope. He wouldn’t do to Neal what his own father did to him. So he wrapped his arms around Neal, hugging him tight and giving him time to breathe, time to finish crying and calm a bit.

“We need to get back inside where it’s warm,” he eventually told his son. Neither of them had coats on, and shivering was beginning to lose its charm. “There’s chocolate mousse for dessert. Wouldn’t you like some?”

A couple of unsure seconds later, Neal asked, “What’s that?”

“Sort of like fluffy pudding,” he explained. “I hope it sounds good, because there’s a whole bowl of it in the fridge.”

“Sounds good,” Neal decided, and though his breath still hitched occasionally, his voice was lighter.

Belle met them in the entryway. Neal hung back next to his father until she spoke. “You know, we met Mrs. Claus today. I happen to know that Santa is in town, too, and he’ll be accepting visitors at Mr. Geppetto's shop tomorrow.”

At that, Neal’s hesitance broke. He sniffled and went to hug her, hiccuping into the front of her shirt. Climbing down from her chair, Alice ran in, clamping her arms around Neal from behind. 

Over top of the children, Thomas met Belle’s eyes. The look she gave him was soft, full of love. But he found something sad there, too. Belle held a hand out to him and he took it, letting her pull him in close with them. 

Everything felt _right_ here, with her. He wanted to be here, Neal and Alice wanted to be here. Belle wanted them here. The idea of leaving was hurting everyone, and he wished there were some other choice.


	17. Chapter 17

It was so difficult to resist talking to Thomas about staying. Any discussion was bound to turn into her trying to find out what he didn’t want to tell her, what he was afraid of. It would only scare him away again, and she needed every moment with him that she could get. They were having such a nice time, the two of them, the four of them. Neal and Alice seemed happy, and Tam seemed happy, too, when they were together. Belle did her best not to think about when it would stop.

She had taken to spending most nights with him since the evening they’d gone caroling. Everything about being with Tam was joyful. Despite his initial skittishness, he was delightfully affectionate, and moreso in private. The part of him that was full of love made it past the fear and the wall he had built around him and the children. Or maybe she’d just managed to find a little window in. Either way, when she touched him, she felt him shine. 

She’d have suggested they see Santa today regardless of Neal’s upset the night before - it was simply luck, having the plans already in mind when she needed something to comfort and distract him. Belle had timed the kids’ visit to Santa with Tam’s day off. It wasn’t something she wanted him to miss. If he left when he intended, it was the last of his days off they’d get to spend together, as well. 

There was a short line when they went into Marco’s shop. It looked like a few kids had come in on their own, but most stood with a grownup nearby, if not holding their hand. Marco sat in a big rocking chair off to one side. With the help of a great deal of padding, a wig and curled white beard, and a handmade costume so old that no one could remember where it came from, he provided the children with Santa this year. 

Ursula sat in an identical chair next to him, her lap also available for kids. In past years, there had been children who were shy or frightened of Santa Claus, who were more comfortable with Mrs. Claus when it came to photos and the relay of Christmas wishes. Having her there made too much sense for it to have taken so long to make it a part of the tradition.

Neal and Alice were fine with Santa himself. With their father’s encouragement, they went up together, each taking a knee to sit on. Tam took a few pictures with his phone while the kids seemed to have a very serious conversation with Santa. 

“Would you like to go sit on Santa’s lap?” he teased as he flipped through the photos, showing her.

“Mm, no.” Belle gave him a sidelong look. She murmured, “His isn’t the lap I’d like to sit on.”

Tam smiled one of his lopsided smiles, and she saw his cheeks go a little pink. She took his hand when he put his phone away, holding it close against her ribs. 

Marco looked their way while the kids talked. He nodded and reached up to touch next to his nose with one white-gloved finger before their discussion was done. With the help of his son, he’d made dozens of small, carved and painted wooden toys - enough to be able to gift one to every child in town who might come to visit Santa. Before they went on their way, Marco reached into a big, red velvet bag between the chairs and gave Neal and Alice a toy apiece.

They came running back to their father, eager to show him their little gifts. Alice held an orange and tan cat with blue eyes, sitting with its tail carved in a curl up the back, and Neal had been given a gray horse with brown and white dapple spots. Both kids held their new treasures up to Tam.

He ‘ooh’ed and ‘ahh’ed over their toys with the expected interest. “Right from Santa’s workshop!” he said, impressed. “Keep them safe ’til we get back, all right?”

They made their way out, easing past the parents and children lined up through the shop door. The closer it grew to Christmas, the busier town was. People were out in search of presents, food, holiday party supplies. As festive as more townspeople made things, it also made navigating more of an adventure. She looped her arm tightly through Tam’s, keeping close as they headed down the sidewalk. He held onto Neal’s hand, and Neal held onto Alice’s, together reminding Belle of a line of ducklings.

“Okay,” Belle began once they got away from the flow of people. “A couple of blocks down from the library, we have an art store, and every year, the owner donates supplies and time for kids to come in and make ornaments. I thought we might go over while we wait for the tree lighting?”

With a smirk hidden at the corner of his mouth, Tam ignored Neal’s increasingly insistent pulling at his hand. “I figured we’d wander around between now and then, but making ornaments does sound like fun,” he finally said, and Neal huffed in victory.

 _Jolene’s Arts & Crafts_ was maybe half the size of the library inside, and filled to the brim with precisely what it claimed. The clutter of inventory somehow gave it a cozy feeling that Belle enjoyed. And that led her to spend entirely too much money there.

“Jeff, this is Thomas Peterson,” Belle introduced, waving a hand between the two men. “Tam, this is Jefferson Milliner. He’s the store owner I was telling you about.”

“I assure you, everything Belle says is… well, probably true.” Jefferson gave a broad, somewhat cocky grin. “I’d heard you were back in town.”

Tam quirked an awkward smile in response. “Suppose everyone has.”

“You don’t know me, but I remember your mother. I remember her coming in when I was a kid, buying bolts and bolts of fabric and notions, that kind of thing. For her dress-making. There are older people around who still have some of the things they had her sew, more likely than not. She never failed to be nice. Seemed kind of sad, though,” Jefferson said, squinting off at the floor for a moment before looking up at them again. “She always had those little chocolate cherry hard candies with the gold wrappers in her purse, I remember that, too. Always gave me one when she came in.”

“Yeah, I- I’ve had those. It’s been ages.” A strange expression developed over Tam’s features. He shook his head, saying as though he talked to himself, “I can almost taste them.”

Belle touched his arm, and it was as if he surfaced from somewhere else. “Tam? You all right?”

“I’m fine.” He looked to her, the return of his smile delayed by a split second. 

“It’s about that time,” Jefferson told them as he turned his wristwatch where he could see it. “And I offer the parents, but they never take me up on it - you can make ornaments, too, if you want to. It’s not restricted to the kids. Adults just think they’re too ‘dignified’ to sit and play with glitter and styrofoam in public.”

He clapped Tam on the shoulder before jogging off to the middle of a ring of folding tables and chairs. They were set up with a large, round table at the center that had been covered in small storage bins filled with vials of glitter and sequins, strings of fringe and other trimmings, styrofoam shapes and empty plastic ornament balls, buttons, beads, bits of fabric, and more oodles of things than Belle could take in at a glance.

After a wordless conversation of raised eyebrows and shrugs, they ended up sitting at one of the small tables with Neal and Alice to make ornaments of their own. She was constantly making things for the library. Signs, banners, decorations. But there was something so different about being there with Tam and his kids, sharing glue and safety scissors, putting together Christmas ornaments from scratch. Belle never had taken the time to get her own tree up after taking one over to Tam. She liked the thought of putting her ornament on their tree, anyway.

By the time they went down to the town square, there was already a large and still gathering group waiting for it to grow dark enough for the tree lighting. They’d hardly stopped in one spot when Emma Nolan materialized from somewhere ahead of them, running over to Neal.

After a quick whisper from her, Neal asked, “Papa, can we go to the front with Emma?”

Tam looked up, and Belle saw him search for the little girl’s parents before he answered. “You can go, but only if you stay where I can see you.”

Taking Neal’s hand, Emma towed him and Alice with him nearer the big Christmas tree as though there were a rush. Belle could see the apprehension set in on Tam’s face. With her arm through his, she tugged him closer to the front, bringing them up behind the Nolans. She didn’t want his worry to ruin his enjoyment of the evening.

He turned to her with a grateful look. The streetlamps began flicking on, and light glinted off a piece of glitter caught in his hair. Belle lifted a hand to brush it away, perhaps running her fingertips over his temple more than was strictly necessary after the glitter fluttered to the shoulder of his coat. 

“I love you,” she said, the words falling from her mouth with an ease that she hadn’t expected.

“Belle.” Tam reached up for her hand, taking it in his, pressing a warm kiss to the back of her fingers. His reply was so soft that she felt more than heard it. “I love you.”

Slipping her hand away, she wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him as though she could keep him there if she only held on long enough. He wanted the same. She _knew_ he did. Tam held her too tightly in return for anything else.


	18. Chapter 18

Frederick’s techno music was… not Thomas’ cup of tea. He withstood it in somewhat equal parts confusion and amusement over the course of another ride back to Bea and Necie’s. There were an extra handful of cars parked at Granny’s house, he noticed as they passed by. She was having people over for a Christmas party, Thomas assumed. There were a lot of people around town doing the same - throwing parties, having family in from out of town for celebrations. He’d delivered alarming amounts of food to a few of them over the last couple of days. 

Thomas got out at the end of the Weavers’ driveway and raised a hand in thanks for the ride as Frederick drove away. He was halfway up the steps when Necie threw open the door, wide-eyed unease on her face.

“Oh, Tam, dear, can you help?” she began, going on before he could reply. “There’s a mouse. We have him in a live trap, but neither of us want to touch it, you understand, and I hoped you might take it out and let him go somewhere.”

He wasn’t thrilled with rodents, but he could do what she needed. It wasn’t as though he could turn her down, as much as she and Bea had done for them. “Of course. Where is it?” he asked, going inside when she held the door open for him.

“Just there, in the parlor.” Necie gestured with a quick wave of her hand.

Noise and light. It hit him as soon as he entered the room, driving him back a step. His thoughts clicked along for a second before he recognized the people there and understood what they’d shouted at him.

_“Happy birthday!”_

There were decorations. A pennant banner stretched across the back of the parlor with the same words on it. Twisted streamers and balloons floated near the ceiling. A cake with chocolate icing and blue candy letters sat on Bea and Necie’s coffee table. Thomas looked around for Belle, and he found her headed toward him, holding her lower lip between her teeth.

“There’s no mouse?” he asked, more than a little stunned.

“No mouse,” she said quietly. “Neal told me about your birthday. I hope this is all right?”

Hot tears sprang to Thomas’ eyes. He tried to figure out _what_ he felt while ten or so people watched him with expectant smiles. He couldn’t even remember the last time his birthday was celebrated.

Bea and Necie came bustling over. “We should have remembered,” Bea apologized. “Honestly. We remember the night you were born. Snowing like a banshee. We worried your parents would get stranded on the way to the hospital.”

“Oh, pish. He’ll forgive two old ladies their memories,” Necie said, giving his cheek a pat. “Half the time, I don’t remember my purse when we leave the house. Bea forgets her teeth some mornings.”

Bea gave a scandalized cluck of her tongue. “I do _not_ have dentures. Stop telling people that.”

Necie sent her wife a mischievous look before turning back to Thomas. “Come on, dear. A party is far better than a mouse, isn’t it? All you have to do is be fussed over.”

He let her shoo him toward the sofa, where Neal and Alice sat with an inordinate amount of politeness. Neal looked at him from the corner of his eyes.

“Papa, you’re not mad, are you?” his son asked.

Thomas sniffled as subtly as he could manage. “Mad? Why would I be mad?”

“I told when your birthday is,” Neal confessed.

He reached for Neal, lifting the little boy over onto his lap, and hugged him close. “I’m not mad. It’s just fine. Okay?”

Neal nodded, the worry disappearing from his face. “Do you like the party? Me and Alice picked out the cake letters and balloons, and Miss Bea and Miss Necie made the cake, and Belle and Alice put the candles on it. I didn’t know how many candles we need, so they just put twelve on it, because it’s December,” he rattled on.

“I love it. All of it,” Thomas reassured him. 

Alice crawled across the space left by Neal to claim a portion of lap for herself, heedless of feet and sharp little knees. Throwing an arm around Thomas’ neck, she wished him a loud, “Happy birthday, Papa!”

He didn’t have the heart to correct her, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Moving an arm to hold her, as well, he kissed the children’s cheeks. “Thank you. Both of you. You’ve done such a good job!”

Belle sat down on the sofa next to Thomas with a bounce, rounding the affection out with a kiss pressed to his own cheek. “You really like it?”

“He said he _loves_ it,” Neal corrected, leaning his head back over his father’s arm to see her.

She placed a fingertip on Neal’s nose and kept it there until he giggled and sat back up. “The whole thing might be my fault. I told Bea and Necie that I had an idea for your birthday, and we ran with it,” she said, and Thomas felt her arm slide between his back and the sofa. “I made sure they didn’t go too far. They wanted to have it at the diner and invite a whole list of people, and the look on your face is exactly why I talked them down from it.”

Thomas didn’t realize how he cringed until she remarked on it. He relaxed his expression and smiled over at her. “Thank you for that.”

He recognized all of the people who had ended up invited. They’d been kind to him, all of them. He wondered if he could actually call them friends when they didn’t know who he was. 

“There are presents, too,” Belle whispered to him, and he felt himself pull another pained expression.

~ ~~ 。~~ ~

“Tam, no!” Bea scolded as he took her empty coffee cup from the table next to her chair. “You sit back down. Leave that.”

“You wash dishes every other day of the week, dear,” Necie agreed.

He took her coffee cup and another that had been abandoned, as well. “That just means I’m particularly good at it,” he said, taking Belle’s cup and heading for the kitchen.

Bea clucked at him again. “It’s a good thing we gave in on those paper plates, or the boy would be at those, too.”

The party had been wound down for a while. Half of the guests were on their way home, but the Weaver ladies were holding court. They sat in the parlor, trading in gossip and keeping the remaining guests wrapped up in conversation about it. Neal and Alice had played downstairs and upstairs and downstairs again, until they’d worn themselves out enough to take over the settee in the corner for an impromptu nap. Figuring it would be impolite to close his own eyes to escape the rest of the evening, Thomas was glad to retreat to the relative quiet of the kitchen.

He’d almost finished washing the cups when he heard Belle’s heels change tune from the hardwood hallway to the tile of the kitchen floor. He finished rinsing them, setting them on the drainer next to the sink before turning around.

“So, _did_ you really enjoy the party?” Belle asked, leaning back against the island that dominated the middle of the kitchen. 

“It’s-” _It’s been a long time,_ he started to tell her, but that wasn’t accurate. “I’ve never had a birthday party.”

Sharp sympathy crossed her face, and he wished he hadn’t admitted it.

“I did enjoy tonight. I enjoyed being here with you,” Thomas told her, drying his hands with more attention that was probably needed. 

“But… you’re not a big fan of that kind of attention?” she guessed.

He threaded the dish towel through a drawer pull and leaned his backside against the counter in front of the sink. “Not so much.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She stretched to bump the toe of her shoe against his. “Were your presents all right?”

Thomas glanced sheepishly downward. “More than all right.”

For the most part, he’d been given gift cards, all for fairly common chain restaurants and stores. He and the children could use them even after leaving town. Bea and Necie gave him a knitted scarf and a pair of mittens, both made in the same searing shade of turquoise. They were _soft,_ though, and warm. Belle floored him by giving him a tablet. It was small, but still. They’d had a quick, hushed discussion about cost that ended with her squishing his cheeks between her hands and assuring him that it wasn’t expensive. Her backup reasoning was that it would be entertaining for Neal and Alice, too. He had a feeling she’d been cataloguing his weaknesses.

The kitchen went quiet. He could hear muted chatter from the parlor and the drip from the faucet behind him. Belle took a breath as if she might say something, but she only sighed it out again.

She looked at him with an intense wistfulness, as though she were trying to memorize him. He understood; he’d been doing the same for days. Memorizing her face, the way she spoke, walked, moved her hands. The time they spent alone had taken on a bittersweet desperation, wanting and clinging that had an awful timer on it. 

Belle pushed away from the counter to step closer. He waited until she reached out for him before he brought his hands up to rest at her hips. Looking into his eyes, she cradled her palms against his cheeks, her fingers running along the line of his jaw, twice, three times. She stroked her fingertips down his sideburns, then around the shape of his ears, and over his temples, carding through his hair. 

Some old hurt inside him _tried_ to uncoil and let go under her touch. It was almost too much. He felt his insides begin to shake. 

Belle’s hands stilled at the back of his neck, her fingers lacing together there. She pressed her body to his and pulled herself up onto her tiptoes to kiss him. Thomas wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her against him, kissing her as if he knew how many kisses they had left. 

From the kitchen doorway, there came a singsonged, “Oooh…”

Thomas felt her smile against his mouth before she pulled back. Looking over her shoulder, he found Neal peering around the cabinet with an unrepentant little grin. Belle lowered herself onto her heels again and licked her lips. It meant something to him that she didn’t pull quickly away when someone was looking. 

“It occurs to me that this is someone else’s kitchen, now that we have an observer,” he said pointedly, and his son ran back down the hallway laughing.

Belle leaned to drop a kiss beneath his jaw, staying in the circle of his arms for a while longer. “And yet, somehow I don’t believe Bea or Necie would mind.”


	19. Chapter 19

“Down here. Here’s a spot.” Belle stopped at a row toward the front.

She led him along by the hand, moving carefully past feet and knees on the way to a pair of empty seats. They’d ushered the children backstage themselves before going out to sit. The chairs were already three-quarters filled with half an hour to go. A makeshift curtain stretched across the stage in swathes of red fabric that Thomas had helped Marco to thread onto a large pipe armature at the last rehearsal the evening before, now occasionally waving with movement from behind.

“I’m glad you thought to ask for Alice’s bit to have no lines,” he mentioned as they got settled. “She’s still working up to being chatty. I wasn’t sure how that might go.”

Belle rested a hand on his knee. “I do pay attention.”

He leaned, aware of all the people around them, and gave her a quick kiss. “I know you do,” he said, and he felt her fingers tighten against his leg for just a moment.

Thomas received a sudden pat on the back. He turned to find Marco smiling down at him from the row behind them. 

“Tam,” the older man greeted. He sat next to Granny, who gave Thomas a wink before she and Marco began discussing the merits of changing up the pageant to some degree from year to year in an effort to keep it interesting.

He’d only just faced front again to mind his own business when he heard someone clear their throat in the way one did to obtain attention. Looking up, he found Mal at the end of the row, the definition of dignified in her cream business suit. The three people seated between them and her stood to let her move by.

He nudged Belle. “Your friend,” he managed before Mal stood over them.

“It turns out Abigail and Astrid have both come down with the flu,” she began, clearly disgruntled with their temerity to get sick tonight of all nights. “I thought, perhaps, as I did you a favor, you might do me one in return.”

Belle picked up the purse she’d just set down by her feet. “You don’t have to pull that string. I don’t mind helping.”

Mal, obviously expecting the answer she received, brought a paper sign with ‘reserved’ written across it from behind her back. It was prepared with pieces of tape attached to the top. Belle bumped her knee into Thomas’, and he stood to leave the row ahead of her. She stuck the sign across the middle of their chairs before joining him to follow Mal. 

Backstage was a conference room, cleared out to make space for two dozen people, big and small. They helped children with costumes and props, helped to dry tears of stagefright, and Thomas hunted down no less than two missing halos and a pair of sandals. Two children broke out into a squabble over whose toy sheep was more realistic. While Belle mended a torn robe hem for one of the Magi, Thomas took them aside to explain that both would appear equally real from the stage. 

“All right, you two, back to being audience,” Mal said, shooing them off at the same time she shooed children toward the stage to arrange them on their marks. “You enjoy the show from that side. I’ll finish here.”

Thomas grabbed first Neal and then Alice as they scuttled by him, dropping a kiss on each of their heads before they could line up in the wings. Only the occasional chair was empty when they went back out front. Belle pulled the sign from their seats and they re-took them, hardly having to wait before the curtain rose on Mary, Joseph, and their cardboard donkey.

Neal and Alice’s first appearance came with the angels announcing to the shepherds. There were five of the former and six of the latter, owing to a need for small roles. Alice still held her bunny tighty in one arm, her gold tinsel halo wobbling on its wire every time she moved. Neal had won the chance to step in as the speaking shepherd when the previous one turned up with the flu only a couple of days before the pageant. His efforts at rehearsals went well. Thomas held his breath.

The speaking part for the angels was long, and Mal had spread it out over three children. He could see the little girl whose job was to start off winding up for it.

“Fear not!” she shrieked through the room. Most of the angels and shepherds giggled before the scene progressed any farther. The angels following her spoke with marginally more calm.

“Let us now… go to Bethlehem and…” Neal recited haltingly. His head turned toward the audience when he became aware that he was faltering.

Thomas caught his son’s eye and gave him an encouraging nod.

“And… annnd… see-the-baby-Jesus-like-the-angels-said!” he finished as though it were all one word. The lights in the star suspended overhead twinkled and the curtain pulled shut. 

Some of the parents had made or bought their children new costumes, making quite an issue of it. Part of the pageant’s charm came from the slightly mismatched outfits. Thomas was only glad that Mal had some pre-made costumes in storage, because he wasn’t sure what he’d have dressed Neal and Alice in otherwise. 

The number of angels and shepherds had doubled when the curtain opened onto the manger scene. They surrounded the nativity in a small crowd, looking on as the Magi made their way in.

“Looks like something happened offscreen with those annunciations,” Belle whispered over to him, and he snorted softly.

The audience easily forgave forgotten lines and fumbled props without a murmur. Even Joseph almost overturning the manger only received scattered chuckles. From her spot next to the stable, Alice spotted them and began waving wildly. There were a few titters and more expressions of “aww” around them, but Belle covered her mouth to smother her laugh. Thomas simply waved back. The amusement built, though, and by the time one of the shepherds’ stuffed sheep hit the stage with a high-pitched _BAA!_ in the middle of the Magi offering their gifts, the audience cracked up laughing. 

The pageant ended with the children singing _Silent Night_ in a variety of keys. After a bow, the curtains closed, and they all came out a few minutes later. Alice ran up to Thomas, colliding with his legs and beaming up at him before turning to Belle. She held her arms out and hopped to be picked up. Belle obliged, lifting Alice onto her hip.

Neal emerged a little more slowly. He went to Thomas, nudging his way under one arm. “I messed up my line.”

“You did so well,” Thomas said as he squatted down nearer the little boy’s height. “It was your first play, and being on a stage in front of people is hard. I’m proud of you.”

“Proud of me?” Neal asked, leaning on his father’s knee.

“Always,” Thomas promised. His son dropped forward, right into a hug, and he felt Belle’s hand rest on his shoulder. “No matter what, I’ll always be proud of you.”

~ ~~ 。~~ ~

“I need to take a quick shower,” Belle said as she shed her outdoor things in the entryway. She reached back to catch Thomas’ hand. “I caught the glitter plague from that one angel’s halo backstage.”

He nodded. “The kids need baths, anyway. I’ll meet you in the living room with pie and coffee?”

“That sounds heavenly,” she told him, closing her eyes to underscore her point. She squeezed his hand, holding onto it until she had to let go to head upstairs. 

Thomas helped the children out of their coats and sent them up to get their pajamas ready. He still held the pieces of their costumes that had been shed in the back of Belle’s car - Neal’s striped headdress, Alice’s halo and sash. He would have to leave them to be returned. The pipes hummed inside the walls when Belle turned the shower on upstairs. The children laughed hard about something. It hit him like a punch to the gut, how domestic and normal everything felt.

He looked in at the tree they’d decorated together, drawn over to it by the lights and memory. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve. Anxiety twisted and clawed at the inside of his stomach. He had to leave. He had to take Neal and Alice and leave, because any legal processes that might have been slowed or authorities that might have been distracted by the holidays were sure to jump right back into step, and he wanted to be much farther away from Boston when that happened.

Light glinted off the star ornament that Belle had given the children. It occurred to him to wonder whether she would want it back. The ornament meant something to her. Surely she would, once she found him out for his lies. 

Thomas touched the little golden star, holding his fingers behind it. If Neal and Alice could put such strong faith into wishing on it, well then, he could salvage some of his own.


	20. Chapter 20

What she _wanted_ to do was spend Christmas Eve in the bed with Tam. The fact that they both had to work was a spanner in that plan. She stayed as long as possible, tucked warm beneath the covers with him, trying to consciously enjoy every last minute. Eventually, though, he had to get ready for work, and she needed to get down to the library. 

Belle climbed out of bed to watch while he shaved. He was slow and methodical with it, almost meditative. She liked the way he got ready in the mornings. Getting ready for the day alongside him was comfortable - she never felt that she had to hurry him or as if they got in one another’s way. The only downside to that was never feeling like hurrying at all. She hadn’t been early in to work a single day since they’d begun spending nights together. 

Downstairs, Tam got the kids started on breakfast before walking her to the door. He tucked her scarf ends into the front of her coat and buttoned the top two buttons for her, and there was so much tenderness in the gesture that it took her breath.

“I’ll see you at lunch,” he said, and his smile had a tinge of sadness about it. “Deliveries cut off at five today.”

She pressed close, leaning into him, getting a kiss that tasted like cinnamon cereal and coffee. Belle left her hands on his chest for a moment before patting him and pushing herself gently away. 

“I’ll be back to get ready for the thing at the library right about then.” She pulled her mittens from her coat pocket and put them on. “It’ll be fun. I promise.”

It was hard, leaving the house. She had this fear now of going back to find him and the kids gone. Belle didn’t _think_ he would disappear without giving her a chance to say goodbye, but just knowing that they had so little time left sent waves of something that felt a lot like panic through her. Over and over, she’d considered going with him, wherever he was going. She had a life in Storybrooke. The library, car payments, a mortgage. It wasn’t as easy as picking up and running off with him. She never thought she would look back on the days when she had nothing to lose with anything less than relief, but there she was.

A white truck with a blue and yellow logo on the side was parked in front of the sheriff’s office when she passed by. The internet provider had finally gotten their technician out to help, it looked like. 

She parked around back and took the rear door in. The library wasn’t open to the public until later in the evening, but she still had responsibilities. Stepping into the office, she flipped the light on, dropping her mittens and scarf on the desk. Her hands stilled when she reached for the front of her coat. There, caught around her top button, shone a single strand of Alice’s blonde hair. 

Belle sat down hard in the chair. She let herself cry, leaning over on the desk and laying her head on her arms, shaking with it. The thought of losing not only Tam, but Neal and Alice, as well, hurt like someone twisted a knife between her ribs. She couldn’t count the hours she’d spent daydreaming about keeping them. Not quite three weeks she’d known the little family, two that she’d been with Tam, and already she couldn’t imagine her day to day without them. 

She cried until she was in danger of being discovered by Ariel. Pulling herself together, she cleaned up and proceeded to distract herself with work. Belle got through her usual morning routine in record time. She was ready to resort to bringing out the carpet sweeper when Ariel arrived. 

Putting up decorations was a far better mood lifter than working alone. They added to what was already there - a few additional light strings, a few cleverly placed sprigs of mistletoe, some strips of cotton ‘snow’ on the front desk with a few tiny Christmas village houses nestled into it. They’d been working for a couple of hours and hadn’t quite finished setting up Santa’s chair when the phone at the desk rang. Belle hurried to get it, leaning over the counter to grab the handset.

“Storybrooke Library,” she answered, giving Ariel a thumbs up about the garland of poinsettias her friend was draping across the back of the chair. 

“Belle,” Graham said from the other end of the line. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

~ ~~ 。~~ ~

By ten, as the result of a generous tip from the PTA president in thanks for delivering their Christmas party catering, Thomas had officially saved enough to pay Gus for the repairs on his car. The realization was met with profound relief and equally terrible disappointment. He could leave anytime he was ready.

He pulled into the employee parking lot at the back of the restaurant to get another round of deliveries, only to find the sheriff’s car sitting there blocking his way through. Graham leaned against the hood. The sheriff headed toward him as he pulled into the first open space.

Behind Graham, he could see Neal and Alice in the back seat. Graham had picked the children up from Bea and Necie’s. Thomas’ stomach tied up on knots. The disappointed expression on the sheriff’s face was all he needed to know that Graham _knew._ And soon everyone else would know, too. It was only by muscle memory that he got the delivery truck parked and turned off. He took the keys from the ignition and opened the door in time for Graham to rest a hand on top of it.

“Thomas, we need to have a talk. I’m going to need you go get in the car,” Graham told him, voice level.

Thomas held the keys out. “Can you give these to Dove? He’ll have to get someone to- to make deliveries. There are people waiting for their food,” he said without looking the sheriff in the eye.

Accepting the truck keys, Graham stood back until Thomas got out of the vehicle. He closed the door and walked with Thomas over to the sheriff’s car, opening the front passenger door to let him in. “I’m going to hand the keys off. You’ll stay right here, all right?”

Thomas nodded. He flinched when the door slammed shut.

“Papa, did somebody find out?” Neal asked from the back seat.

“I don’t know, love.” Thomas turned to look at his son and Alice. “We’re going to be okay, though, all right? You’re going to be okay.”

Graham came back to get behind the wheel without a word. His mouth was set differently than when he’d walked off, and Thomas wondered if he’d gotten into it with Dove.

“Sheriff, can you tell me what’s going on?” Thomas asked as though he weren’t certain. He didn’t know if it was even worth it to try and keep up an appearance of innocence, but it couldn’t hurt, either.

“We got a notice to be on the lookout for you and the kids,” Graham said shortly. “I had to report back for it.”

Thomas clenched his teeth. There wasn’t much else to say, was there? It wasn’t until they drove past the sheriff’s office that he spoke again. “I thought-”

“We’re headed to the town hall. You’re going before the mayor. She’s our ex officio municipal judge,” Graham told him, turning off on the street leading toward the middle of town. “Belle is going to meet us there.”

“Belle knows? You’ve told her?” Thomas asked, feeling ill.

“She’d want to know,” the sheriff said. There was more than a hint of accusation there.

Thomas leaned over. If he were going to be sick, it was better on the floor than the dashboard.

They went through a different archway off the foyer than the audience for the pageant had, making their way down a short corridor. Graham led Thomas and the children through to a conference room. He hadn’t properly met Mayor Mills, but he recognized her from Belle pointing her out. She sat at the head of a large, glass conference table, looking none too happy, herself.

Belle was already there, standing to one side of the table with her arms wrapped herself and a fretful look on her face. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she said the instant she laid eyes on him, hurrying over. She grabbed hold of his coat sleeve. “Why keep it a secret? Why lie all this time?”

“I was scared,” he whispered, and he couldn’t meet her eyes, either. “I’m sorry…”

She shook her head, giving his sleeve a tug. “Tam, I-”

The mayor cleared her throat. “We’re waiting for one more before we begin. Have a seat.”

Belle took the the nearest chair. He stood, feeling not quite as helpless that way. It was an illusion, but it was all he had at this point. The children clung to him as though he were the only steady thing in the world. Neal held onto the hem of his coat and Alice patted at his leg until he reached down to pick her up. The unsureness was torture for him; he couldn’t imagine how much worse it was for them.

The ‘one more’ they waited for turned out to be the social worker he’d taken the kids out from under in Boston. She came stalking in with a face like soured milk, glaring through him.

Ms. Gorm stood on the other side of the conference table, near the mayor. “Sheriff,” she snipped by way of greeting. “Mayor. I assume we can finish this quickly so that you can arrest Mr. Gold and I can get the children back to Massachusetts, where they belong.”

“I don’t feel led to taking a shortcut on this,” Mayor Mills said, raising an eyebrow at the woman’s presumptuousness. She tapped her gavel thoughtfully on the sound block. “And I don’t intend to break a family up on Christmas Eve, if it can be helped.”

The social worker’s face turned a couple of shades of red in anger before she composed herself. Somewhat. “This man took two children over state lines _after_ I’d already begun proceedings to take custody of them,” she said through gritted teeth. “I have paperwork to prove it.”

Before Regina could reply, a man with small, mean eyes and a receding buzz cut of white hair walked into the room and slammed the door behind him. His suit looked expensive, but it wasn’t quite cut to fit. Thomas, recalling Bea and Necie mentioning the Peterson widow’s lawyer, had a terrible feeling that he knew who this was.

“Suppose it’s a good thing my son twisted his ankle and we cut the ski trip short, isn’t it? Apparently I can’t leave town without you allowing it to go to rack and ruin,” he snarled loudly, slapping an attaché case onto the table near the mayor. Stabbing a finger at it, he went on. “I want this man arrested. I’ll be filing charges for trespassing, squatting, and impersonation. And we’ll just _see_ what sort of damage he’s done to the property. There _will_ be a lawsuit. Mark my words, Regina.”

The mayor sighed. “Ms. Gorm, this would be Albert Spencer, our rather catch-all attorney. Albert, this is Saffira Gorm. She’s with Massachusetts DCF.”

Fear coiled tighter and tighter in Thomas’ chest until he felt lightheaded with it. 

Belle sat there next to where he stood, her expression set with a deep frown. She drummed the fingers of her right hand slowly on the tabletop. She looked as though she were counting, stacking thoughts.

“It’s too much,” she said aloud.

“You’re damn right it is!” Albert snapped, flicking a look at her. 

Thomas cringed more from Belle’s response than from the lawyer’s. “I’m so sorry-”

Turning the chair, she looked up at him. “No, I mean everything. You. Your name. The Weavers feeling like they know you, your birthday, those _candies_ Jeff was talking about, for God’s sake.” She shook her head, looking to Graham and the social worker, then back to Thomas. “Wait right here.”

Belle pushed the rolling chair back and got up, going to Graham. “Don’t let her take the kids. I think I know something that might help. Just- just _wait,”_ she told him before she ran from the conference room.

She’d been gone hardly a minute when Bea and Necie arrived. “What fresh hell is this?” Bea said, storming in.

He never imagined she could look so angry. Thomas assumed that her anger was toward him, only realizing it wasn’t when both women placed themselves on his side of the table.

The lawyer scoffed. “Right next door to you, and you never reported a thing. But I shouldn’t expect better of the two of you than allowing this derelict to squat in a house that isn’t his.”

“Yes, it damn well is,” Bea told him, squaring her shoulders. 

“You’ve always been half mad,” he dismissed spitefully. “Now you’re downright dotty. Neither of you would know a grifter from a bar of soap.”

Necie threw her purse into the chair Belle had occupied. “Albert Spencer, I’m not too dotty to know that you get a stipend from the estate as long as it goes unclaimed. How hard did you actually _try_ to find Tam? Did you? At all?”

“You’re nothing but an ambulance chaser who lucked into being the only shark in a small pond,” Bea told him.

“Keep at it, Beatrice, you’ll be looking for yourself another attorney,” Albert threatened.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s fine by me. I remember just which rock I found you under.”

The mayor, clearly choking back laughter, gaveled. “Quiet. This isn’t helping the matter at hand.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Ms. Gorm said as though she disapproved of the entire room. She looked to the sheriff, pointing an accusing finger in Thomas’ direction. “Arrest him. You have more than enough to charge him with, don’t you? I have placement waiting for the children.”

“No.” Graham cut her demands short, appearing not the least bit impressed with her. “I’m waiting on possible evidence. If you’re so interested in those kids’ welfare, then you shouldn’t mind getting the full picture of what’s going on. Should you?”

The social worker pulled a chair out and placed herself primly in it. Thomas looked to the wall clock over the mayor’s head, wondering where Belle had gone. There _was_ nothing that could help him now, and he had never felt more alone than he did in that conference room with a half dozen people. 

Just as Graham took out his phone, presumably to get in contact with Belle, she walked back through the door with a couple of lidded boxes in her arms. Thomas recognized one of them as the box he’d been afraid for her to look in when they were hunting for Christmas decorations in the attic. She set them down next to him. There it was. All the absolute proof they needed that he was a liar.

“Tam, here,” she said, pulling out a chair and nudging him to take it. She took the lids off the boxes and gathered a handful of photographs from one to lay in front of him.

Ms. Gorm half rose from her seat. “What, exactly, is this supposed to accomplish?”

“Sit down,” Mayor Mills told her. “Belle, whatever it is you’re looking for, you might want to find it now.”

“These- these aren’t my photos,” he murmured to Belle as he sat, turning Alice to hold her on his lap. Bringing them out was only going to prove the lawyer and social worker right.

Leaning over the table, she began sorting through a mixture of pictures and papers in the other box. “Just look,” she told him. “See if you find anything familiar.”

Thomas did as she said, looking at photographs one by one, shuffling handfuls from front to back. There was nothing familiar. The people, the places, he didn’t know them. 

“What are your parents’ names?” Belle asked as she rifled through the box.

“Malcolm and… and Fiona…” His voice trailed off to nothing.

A photo in the box he was looking through caught his eye. He dropped the ones he held, taking it out carefully, as though it might disappear. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. It was his father in the photograph - much younger, but undeniably Malcolm Gold. His father stood with an arm around a slim, dark haired woman holding a baby. He recognized the Victorian he’d been squatting in there in the background.

He held the picture up to Bea and Necie. “Who is this?” Thomas asked, his voice trembling.

Necie looked at him, her features further softened with sympathy. She reached out to point at the figures in the photograph. “That’s your mother, dear. That’s your father. And that’s you.”

Bringing the photo down again, he stared at it. “I don’t understand,” he said under his breath. 

The conference room door opened and more people walked in. Dove, Granny and Ruby, Marco, Mal, Jefferson. News had clearly spread. He had a suspicion that it was thanks to the Weavers.

“This is ridiculous! This is not a circus! There are no spectators in this!” Ms. Gorm shouted, her volume rising until Alice put her hands over her ears. “Thomas Gold took a _child_ that _isn’t his_ over state lines. He’s guilty of kidnapping and he knows it, or he wouldn’t have run away.”

“Someone’s casting doubt on Thomas’ identity?” Dove asked, his voice booming in a way that made the social worker’s eyes go wide.

Granny crossed her arms over her chest. “Speaking of ridiculous.”

“This is Thomas Peterson,” Marco explained as though there was a language barrier. “Fiona and Malcolm Peterson’s boy.”

Putting his point across a bit more aggressively than the others, Jefferson challenged, “I mean, look at him. He looks just like his mother, for fuck’s sake.”

Thomas looked harder at the woman in the photograph, her dark eyes, her sharp smile. His heart thumped. _Did_ he look like her?

“Ha!” Belle crowed, pulling out a piece of paper. She slapped it down on the table, looking Saffira Gorm dead in the eye. “He didn’t run away anywhere. He came _home._ That’s his house. His family home. He was taking the kids _out_ of danger, taking them to a place he knew was safe.”

He leaned forward to read the paper she’d brought out - a birth certificate. He made out his father’s signature before the social worker stretched across to snatch it away. 

“They could have fabricated every bit of this,” Ms. Gorm sneered. “It isn’t that difficult to manipulate a photo or print off a fake birth certificate.”

The mayor stood long enough to take the paper from her. “Sit down,” she told the social worker once again.

Thomas’ head reeled. He sifted through the box in front of him, finding more and more photos of his parents, of himself as a baby, and he wondered if this was what having an existential crisis felt like. Beside him, Belle continued to rifle through papers.

“My father told me my mum died when I was born,” he said low, looking at a photograph of the woman. She sat on the sofa in the living room, her head thrown back with laughter. “It’s why we went back to Scotland. That’s what he told me. All my life, that’s what he-”

“Tam,” Belle said quietly, laying a marriage certificate on the table between them.

“Malcolm Peterson?” He picked it up, looking more closely. His hands shook. Gold was _Fiona’s_ maiden name. 

Thomas dropped the piece of paper. He could almost follow his father’s entire train of thought, leaving the country and taking a name his mother wouldn’t imagine to search with. Belle slipped the certificate away and handed it down to the mayor.

“They’re real,” Regina declared before returning the papers. “Both of them.”

Ms. Gorm made a sound of disgust. “There’s still the issue of kidnapping.”

“If you’ll wait a minute, I might be able to resolve that, too,” Graham said, squinting down at his phone.

The deputy that Belle had introduced Thomas to when they’d gone caroling, Mulan, walked into the conference room with a handful of paperwork. “Sheriff,” she said, holding it out for him. “Hot off the printer.”

Graham nodded. He flipped through the pages before going to the head of the table and dropping them in front of the mayor. “Thomas Gold - Peterson, whatever you want to call him - was given full custody of both children with their other parents’ transfer to prison. I find it difficult to believe Ms. Gorm doesn’t have a record of it, herself.”

The social worker looked a great deal as though she’d swallowed a lemon whole. Her mouth pinched together. She didn’t have anything sharp to respond with this time, it seemed.

“A Mr. Killian Jones signed the custody agreement just about two weeks ago,” Mulan added helpfully. “His court appointed lawyer counseled him that it came down to voluntarily relinquishing custody or Alice being taken as ward of the state.”

“I assume that’s the ‘kidnapping’ you accuse him of?” Graham asked Ms. Gorm. “That _is_ the end of your argument against Thomas, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she bit off, at last standing without being told to keep her seat.

The sheriff smiled. “Then I believe the rest have it handled. Why don’t you let us see you out?” he said in a tone that didn’t allow for interpretation as a suggestion.

Ms. Gorm took her files and purse with as much enraged dignity as he could manage. Mulan ahead and Graham behind, they walked her from the room.

“Thomas,” Albert said without an ounce of apology. He cleared his throat. “Come by my office after Christmas. There are papers you’ll need to sign as heir.”

“We’ll be sure to accompany him,” Bea told the lawyer. “Just to be certain all goes smoothly, of course.”

“Of course,” he muttered, taking his attaché case from the table, and he made himself scarce rather quickly, as well.

The mayor tapped her gavel one last time before gathering her own things. “I have _actual_ important business to attend to before the New Year, so if you’ll pardon me.”

Belle turned to Thomas. He wished she wouldn’t look at him so closely, because he could feel tears falling onto his cheeks as all the pieces clicked together in his head. Alice squirmed around in his lap until she could get her arms around his neck, and the next thing he knew, Neal had leaned in to do the same on the other side of him. 

“Papa?” Neal asked, and he could still hear the fright in his son’s voice.

“Everything’s okay,” he reassured both children. His children. He gathered them in close. “Nobody is coming after us. We’re okay.”

Neal pushed back to look up at his father, his mouth open. “We can stay?”

“We can stay,” Thomas confirmed. If the town would have them after everything.

“I believe the show is over,” Necie said, gesturing with shooing hands at the townsfolk still looking on. Most of them began making their way toward the door.

Dove stepped over, resting a large hand on Thomas’ shoulder. “Go home. Rest. I can find someone to cover the rest of the day’s deliveries,” the big man said as gently as he got before going.

The Weavers themselves, unsurprisingly, didn’t find it necessary to leave.

Belle moved Necie’s purse before re-taking her seat there beside Thomas at the table. There were photos and papers spread out across it now. He wanted to look more closely at _everything_ there, and he needed badly to talk with everyone in town who had known his mother. There was so much to learn, so much his father had maliciously kept him ignorant of, and he needed to understand.

“You could have told me.” Belle took his nearer hand, drawing it over to her lap and holding tight to it with both of her own. “What you thought was going on. You could have told me.”

“I couldn’t risk the kids,” he said softly.

“I get it. I do. You were protecting them.”

“I was protecting myself, too.”

She reached up, cupping her hand against his cheek, and he couldn’t help leaning into her touch. “I get the sense that there’s been a lot to protect yourself from.”

Thomas blinked hard. He looked at Neal and Alice, and back to Belle. “We’re not going anywhere,” he said more to himself than anyone else this time, feeling the incredible relief of it wash over him. 

Belle smiled - a ray of sunshine after a painful winter. She leaned in past the children to kiss him. “Neither am I.”


	21. Epilogue

Thomas wasn’t sure what wakened him, but he suspected that it had something to do with the blue eyes peering at him over the side of the bed. When Alice saw his eyes open, she beamed.

“It’s Christmas!” she squeaked in excitement. “Santa was here!”

Sticking an arm out from beneath the covers, he reached to the bedside table and tilted his phone. He groaned. They’d only gone to sleep a little over two hours ago. He and Belle had talked most of the night. With so much more than two weeks stretching out ahead of them, there was a long conversation to have. They stayed up even later celebrating his decision to stay. Twice.

He raised up on one elbow and caught his son peeping around the doorway. Seen, Neal ran in, hopping up onto the foot of the bed.

“Can we open presents?” Neal asked, his eyes sparkling with the same anticipation that Alice had begun to bounce with.

The kids were going to be disappointed, Thomas realized. There were no presents. After meals, after the car, he hadn’t had money to spare to buy any. Christmases had always been pretty lean for them, but they’d stumbled into so many small miracles since wandering into town, Neal and Alice believed that Santa Claus would bring them one more.

“Neal-” he began, trying to formulate some plan for a belated Christmas to help their disappointment.

Belle’s hand rested on his back, a warm spot through his t-shirt. “I’ll make some coffee. And we’ll have cocoa with breakfast!” she told the kids.

“Cocoa!” Alice cheered. She made a run for the door, and Neal was already gone, footsteps thumping down the stairs.

“Don’t worry,” Belle told him with what he could only describe as a sly smile before she kissed him and slid out of bed. She grabbed her robe off the chair by the window. “It’s Christmas.”

Thomas pulled a sweater on over his t-shirt and pajama pants. He would regret not putting socks or shoes on, but he needed to get downstairs to reassure the children that they _would_ have presents soon, and that Santa hadn’t forgotten them. 

Belle was there in the living room archway when he hurried down. Neal and Alice stood right in front of her, all of them looking at the lit up Christmas tree. It was only when she turned to grin at him that he saw the pile of presents that had stunned the children silent. On the sofa sat a pair of stuffed animals - a white bunny to one side and a green crocodile on the other, each flopped against the sofa arms and larger than the children they were intended for. 

“What are you waiting for?” Belle prompted them. “Go on, see what Santa’s brought. I’m going to turn the coffee maker on.”

Neal and Alice took off, sliding to their knees in front of the tree. They began sorting through the packages as fast as their reading abilities would allow. A couple of cups of coffee didn’t take long to drip, and Belle returned with them before the children had gotten halfway finished.

He looked to her, mouthing the words, “Did you do this?”

“Me, Bea and Necie, Granny, Dove, Marco,” Belle said quietly. She looked to the kids. “Watch the names on them. I believe Santa brought your papa a thing or two.”

Thomas gave her a chiding look. “I don’t need anything. Not in the sense of Christmas presents.”

“What? Nobody tells Santa what to do.” She just grinned at him. “Here, your coffee, before it gets cold.”

He took the cup, warming his hands around it, and leaned against the back of the sofa. Belle went with him and tucked herself beneath his arm. There were exchanges of “this has my name on it!” and “this one’s yours” interspersed with the sounds of tearing paper until all of the children’s presents had been liberated from their wrappings. The majority of their new things were toys, but there were pieces of clothing and a pair of crocheted blankets in the mix, as well.

Alice, her bunny clasped close, picked her way through the crumpled paper. “Open your presents, Papa!” she chirped up to him.

“I will,” he promised. “After breakfast.”

She raised her free hand, asking with opening and closing fingers to be picked up. He slipped his arm from around Belle, reaching to set his coffee on the side table, and lifted Alice to rest against his chest.

“Our wishes came true,” Alice whispered. Her smile spoke of a trust that had never expected any other result. 

He smiled at her in return. “They did, didn’t they?”

“Yep!” She patted his nose. “Did yours?”

Thomas looked around at the children and at Belle, at the absolute mess of wrapping paper and ribbon and presents on the floor, at the room that, just then, made him think more than anything of his mother laughing there on the sofa. 

There were other wishes he had. Wishes he was afraid to voice. Some he couldn’t even allow much meaning behind just yet. The wishes he’d made after somehow finding his way back to Storybrooke, though, he had to admit to himself that someone, something, had made them come just as true as the children’s had. And then some.


End file.
